Open Mike

LFC Prayer Trail & My Big 'EPC Moderator' Decision

Friends, would you please pray for me today?  This week I'm in Orlando for our denomination's annual national gathering.  I will be accepting and beginning a leadership position, Moderator, for the next couple of years in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.  The role of 'Moderator' is essentially moderating, or leading, the elder board of the EPC.  I'm humbled, honored and energized by this.  

It was not an easy decision to say 'yes' to.  I thought you might like to see a letter I wrote to our elders and staff last February, after I had sought their counsel whether or not this was the right time to make this committment. It expresses the final way I decided, and my hopes for the EPC the next few years (by the way LFC, its a volunteer deal, so you're still stuck with me as full-time pastor, tripping out most Sundays on the Bible in our worship services).

Hey LFC Elders and Staff and a few other people (if reading this by email click to see pictures)

Today’s snow day coincided with my DAWG Day (stands for Day Alone With God for our staff).  The theme for today: now that I’ve received counsel from so many wise folks, decide: Am I called to be Moderator-elect of EPC? Do I want that role?

This morning Angie and I talked and assimilated the themes that I heard from so many of your helpful thoughts and questions.  Then we prayed together. 

Then I took my dawg Copper and my favorite pipe for a long snow walk.  We decided to pray the Lake Forest Prayer Trail’s ‘Journey With Christ on Good Friday.’ Here we are identifying with Christ, taking up our small cross at the trailhead.

We enjoyed the presence of God informed by the Word of God along the trail, which had already been prayed once before today by a holy bunny.

 

We paused for some time at the heart of the prayer garden, snow falling like the Spirit. What a gift to have my discernment-oriented prayers shaped by this careful selection of God’s Word and crafted thoughtful prayer responses.

 

And then we finished, led by the sign to pray a prayer of thankfulness, renunciation, and laying down our life for our friends. (Thank you Jeff Hathcock and the Motley Crue community group for the prayer trail!) As we gazed at the church Copper and I love so much.

 

 That’s when I Done Did Decide.  I accept the calling to be Moderator-elect from the EPC.  And I want to do it.

 1. I hope to serve the EPC to accelerate its transition from transfer growth into a church planting movement.

 2. I pray I can serve the EPC by contributing to culture change that increasingly values missional creativity and experimentation,  especially by giving permission to young leaders.

 3. While keeping my eye on the ball of Lake Forest Church vision forward and staff health.

 4. While living a personally healthy life with much play, recreation, and time with Angie, Dmo and Amo.

 

I have journaled practices and goals that I think will support these four priorities (based upon many of your helpful suggestions).

 

Thank you for ‘doing life together’ with me in Christ.  Especially for praying with and for me.

Your fan in Him,

Rev. Dr. Mike Moses

Lead Pastor, Lake Forest Church

www.lakeforest.org

www.openmikeblog.com

 

Let Young Eagles Fly

A leadership speaker we've had at Lake Forest the past couple of years has a drum he beats constantly with other church leaders - find the young eagles and let them fly.

When Larry Osborne says this, it's a way of following the example and teaching of the Apostle Paul, who exhorts Pastor Timothy this way:

2 Timothy 2:2        And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will also be qualified to teach others.

This teaching is for every leader at every level of vocational and volunteer ministry.  During our early years as a church (we're now 16 years old), Mitch and I and our elders loved giving permission to younger spiritual leaders to emerge, flap their wings, and learn to fly.  This happened most markedly with Davidson students who worshipped with us and had an inkling God might be calling them to lots of ministry the rest of their lives. I just had lunch with a 10-years-ago-Davidson-grad-LFC-dude who is now planting a church with his wife in Florida.

A few years ago, as our church continued to be graced with serving more people, I conducted a personal study of consistent elements of the leadership of some of the most notable Early Church Fathers (in the 300's and 400's, leaders like St. John Chrysostom and St. Martin of Tours). What I discovered was they were all known for personal holiness, involved service to the poor, anointed biblical preaching, and the raising up of younger pastors and priests.

Now that we are maturing as 'One Church, following Jesus in three Lake Norman communities,' we are constructing what we hope will be powerful, sustained pathways for 'young eagles' to learn and experience spiritual leadership under seasoned mentors. We will continue to do this relationally and organically throughout our ministries (the best spiritual leadership development role at LFC has been when people lead a mission trip for the first time). But we are stepping up formal pathways of training as well: College Interns (summer), Ministry Fellows (college grads for two years), and EPC Church Planting Residents (post- seminary). 

Monday night I hosted this crew, our summer college interns, on my back porch for dinner and conversation over Henri Nouwen's book about healthy spirituality for ministers, "In the Name of Jesus."

Our smiling interns are (from left to right) Alexandra (children's ministry in Huntersville), Alex (pastoral ministry), Ashley (youth ministry Huntersville and Davidson), Cesar (youth ministry at Westlake), and Landry (worship ministry in Davidson). 

We also have two Ministry Fellows who just started (one in Missio Dei, the other at LFC-Davidson in worship and youth ministry), and an EPC Church Planting Resident (particularly assigned to LFC-WestLake) who will start in the fall (we have room for one more Resident, and also are looking for an LFC family who feels called to host our Resident to live in their home for one year).

There are a lot of things I'm jazzed about in our church family (like baptisms and new Ministry Partners and God-stories last Sunday - I was out of my mind for joy).  But this LFC School of Ministry is exciting to me - just because its energizing to be around eager young eagles testing their wings, and because this is an important building block of being a long term Kingdom-building church that's not just built for our generation, but for every generation.

In your own ministry - leading a community group, mission team, men's or women's group, elder, deacon, elementary school small group, or a whole church - how about being prayerful today about applying God's Word in this way:

2 Timothy 2:2        And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will also be qualified to teach others.

Beside St Patrick's Grave: My Ode To Cathal in an Irish Pub

My doctoral dissertation concluded with this story from my Ireland travels.  After I completed research on the transforming missiological leadership of St. Patrick, i had the pleasure of travelling through Ireland to tie off my studies. For a week i drove around the emerald isle in a stick-shift, other-side-of-the-road volkswagen.  I visited the earliest known Christian archaeological sites, and the latest pagan Celtic sites.  All i can say is the trip was glorious. 

The first day i was in Ireland, I drove straight from Belfast's airport to Patrick's reputed grave. 
After a time of reflection and journalling around the huge burial stone, i then obeyed my English friends' instructions (I had been in a monastery in northeast England for a week before, the Northumbria Community) - go to the first pub you find and order a Guiness.  I followed their lead.  The results are as follows, and are recorded as the concluding section of my doctoral dissertation on St. Patrick. I pray that I could actually be the answer to my own prayer, to post-Christian culture in Charlotte NC. I hope  you enjoy:

 

 

To Cathal[1]

    The town of Downpatrick, Northern Ireland, is the reputed burial place of St. Patrick.[2]  A great stone bearing a carving of a Celtic cross and the inscription “Padraig” lies beside a church on a hill.  Down the road, the first pub on the right celebrates four hundred years of continuous service.

    After visiting the burial site, the American traveller slipped into Denvir’s pub on a rainy June evening (2005).  While journaling thoughts inspired by proximity to Patrick, conversation is begun, in the Irish way, over a pint of Guinness offered to a stranger.  Cathal (ca-hal) is a twenty-two year old, fresh in from his father’s wake.  His offer to buy the American ‘writer’ a drink is hospitable, particularly considering the circumstances. 

    Pleasantries are exchanged, cultural jokes indulged.  It comes out that Cathal’s late father’s name was Padraig (Patrick).  A second Guinness is poured, the conversation turns serious as Cathal’s eyes suddenly brim with tears as he recalls his loss. 

    MM: “What a tremendous loss – your father, so young, so suddenly.  I’m here because of the strong leader his namesake was – Padraig, Patrick.”

    C: “Ah yes, I heard he was…Protestant…eh?”

    MM:  “Patrick was part of the Catholic Church.  He fascinates me because of the way he stood for the hope you are wishing for and speaking about right now – that all is not futile, that God exists, God is good, and there is more on the other side of death.”

    C: “I know these things are true, somehow.”

    The conversation moved to the back room, where Cathal’s friends gathered to drink, smoke, and talk the evening away after the wake.  The American 'writer' was invited down.  Football, life and death were visited as topics, with Cathal’s sister offering neo-druidic thoughts, and the others wisps of philosophy, hopefulness, and stark naturalism.  Despondence ruled over hope in the words and countenances of those gathered, none of whom had ever attended church regularly their entire young lives.  Genuine interest was expressed in the American’s talk of a post-Protestant/Catholic Jesus, and humanity’s destiny found in his story, including the souls of the recently and anciently mourned Padraigs.

    The private room quieted, more Guinness was poured, then Cathal spoke.  “I think Jesus must be the way.  If church were like this, where priests just simply talked about God and life from the heart without talking down to everyone, people would listen.  And it would be good.”  The visitor invited Cathal and his friends to try an experimental form of ‘church’ the following week – Ikon.[3] 

The American traveler left,  walking while lifting up hands in the cobblestone street and praying for Cathal to encounter a Jesus-community that speaks his post-Christian, neo-barbarian language.  The traveler asked God to raise up an apostolic leader for this generation, in the spirit of Patrick, a leader whom God might use to transform disaffected people into a gathering, a movement, a church.  Who will that leader be?  For twenty first century Ireland?  For post-modern America?  Whom will the Lord send?

 

“Ego Patricius…”

Here's a picture of the pub where I met Cathal:
 

---

[1] Closing reflection from the author’s Ireland travel journal.

[2] The connection of Patrick’s burial to Downpatrick is based upon legend.  The pointed hill in the middle of town was the ancient seat of tribal power in northern Ireland (Ulster) during the time of Patrick’s arrival.  There is no solid evidence for the location of his resting place in Downpatrick or elsewhere.

[3] Visit http://www.paperstreet.org.uk/ikon/ for a glance at this experimental alt-worship community in Belfast.

Why Church Planting in N. America? Isn't it 'reached'?

As we have become a 'church planting church,' I've had some people question why church planting is important (shouldn't we just focus on improving the weaknesses of our own church? Does Charlotte or America really need more churches? Shouldn't all of our mission money go to traditional missions overseas? Etc.). 

We now commit 3% of our annual budget toward a Church Multiplication mission arm of our church, and pray that we will start one new Jesus-centered congregation every 2-3 years.  Churches to serve people who are near and far, people who are like us and not like us.  The next one we are exploring is a church to possibly serve the spiritual and life needs of the immigrant Latino population in N. Mecklenburg County. 

Since we are so committed to church multiplication, I want to offer answers to the 'why plant churches' question over the next couple of weeks.

This week Lake Forest celebrates the one year anniversary of our most recent church plant - Lake Forest Church-Westlake, a 20 minute drive from our Huntersville campus.  I send congratulations and admiration to the work pastor Aron and Mary Robin Gibson have done in gathering a launch team, then that team together constructing a church that's winsome to the hopes, needs and dreams of Westlake everyday people, and now simply living on mission growing as disciples and loving others in the way of Jesus.  At one year they are a church of 350ish souls, glorious.

Last weekend I taught the first two days of my 'Church Planting' class at Gordon Conwell seminary.  My class is diverse and highly engaged in the subject matter.  Here's a pic of half of the class at lunch on Saturday (with Quinn Rogers, whom I interviewed in class about planting a hip hop church, which now meets in the Neighborhood Theater in NODA on Sunday mornings).

 

So in today's and my next few posts I'm going to give you the slides material from one of my opening class lectures: Why Plant Churches?  The missional, historical, practical, and biblical reasons. 

WHY PLANT NEW CHURCHES IN N. AMERICA? The MISSIONAL reasons:

America has become a huge and important mission field.

} 1.  Recent research states that there are now 195 million non-churched people in America, making America one of the top four largest “unchurched” nations in the world.

 

}“The American church is in the midst of one of the largest mission fields in the world today. Only three other nations—China, India, and Indonesia—have more lost people.”1 Justice Anderson

}“Essentially, what was a churched, supposedly Christian culture has become an unchurched, post-Christian culture. People in our culture are not antichurch; they simply view the church as irrelevant to their lives.”2 Aubrey Malphurs

}In spite of the rise of mega-churches, no county in America has a greater church population than it did ten years ago.3 Ron Sylvia

}During the last ten years, combined communicant membership of all Protestant denominations declined by 9.5 percent (4,498,242), while the national population increased by 11.4 percent (24,153,000).4 Tom Clegg

 

2. AMERICA HAS MORE PEOPLE, BUT LESS CHURCHES

}Each year 3,500 to 4,000 churches close their doors forever; yet only 1,100 to 1,500 new churches are started.5 Win Arn  (note from Dr. Mike - this gap is beginning to close in the past 5 years)

}Even though America has more people, it has fewer churches per capita than at any time in her history. Although the number of churches in America has increased by 50 percent in the last century, the population has increased 300 percent.6 There are now nearly 60 percent fewer churches per 10,000 persons than in 1920.- Bill Easum

 

◦Number of Churches per Americans

}1920   27 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.

}1950   17 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.

}1996   11 churches existed for every 10,00 Americans.

 

3. NEW CHURCHES ARE AMAZINGLY MORE EFFECTIVE AT REACHING UNCHURCHED PEOPLE THAN EXISTING CHURCHES

 

}“Today, of the approximately 350,000 churches in America, four out of five are either plateaued or declining . . . . Many churches begin a plateau or slow decline about their fifteenth to eighteenth year. 80-85 [percent] of the churches in America are on the down-side of this cycle. Of the 15 percent that are growing, 14 percent are growing from transfer, rather than conversion growth.”10 Win Arn,

 

}In the average year, half of all existing churches will not add one new member through conversion growth.11 Ron Sylvia

 

}One American denomination recently found that 80 percent of its converts came to Christ in churches less than 2 years old.12 Ralph Moore

 

}Churches over fifteen years of age win an average of only three people to Christ per year for every one hundred church members. Churches three years to fifteen years old win an average of five people to Christ per year for every one hundred church members, but churches under three years of age win an average of ten people to Christ per year for every one hundred church members.14 Brian McNichol

 

Therefore we must plant new churches.

Celebrating Liberation on MLK Weekend

Sunday was my best and favoritest moment celebrating Dr. M.L. King Jr weekend ever.  Instead of preaching at Lake Forest, I spoke at the almost-one year old church plant nearby, Liberation Ministries.  Here's their church saying hi to Lake Forest for me at the start of the sermon (on Luke 15, the mission statement of Jesus):

 

Liberation meets at Hornets Nest Elementary School and was founded by my friend Rev. Byron Davis. As you can see they are quickly thriving as a church.  We've been a partner church as they've started, including the fact their worship team practices at LFC-H on Sunday monrnings.  Even better we partner in mission - they cooked and brought the food last Monday night to co-host the homeless in our building with us, as we do together every month during winter.

After Byron's far-too-generous introducution, I said to Liberation something like, "I am not qualified to address the most salient themes with you today regarding the legacy of Dr. King, what has been accomplished regarding civil rights, and how much farther we have to go.  But my presence here as friend to Pastor Davis and #1 fan of LIberation Church is a more powerful symbol than any words I could speak.  as is thefact that Byron preaches at our church annually.  A symbol of unity that's possible in Christ, that I pray our churches and individual Christians find across racial barriers in this country with increasing joy and fruitfulness in years to come.  Not only for friendship but also for justice." I then 'commenced to preaching.'

"Now about your love for one another we do not need to write you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other." I Thessalonians 4:9