Audio from The Passion Experience (Good Friday)

I am delighted that this year we are able to post the entire Passion Experience. That is cool because the whole night was designed to be experienced as a whole, not just the messages. So everything is included, even some opening instrumental music. If you are interested, you can find it by clicking here.

Bobby and Beka Jackson (aka, The Culps)

This just made my morning when we did this in our service:



I'm so glad there are others on Suncrest staff who are willing to make fools of themselves for a purpose.

People who need Jesus - Reason #1 for a new church

I have been questioned a few times on the real need for another church/campus in the Merrillville area considering there are so many churches there already. 48 to be exact. On the surface it does appear like there really isn't much need.

However, a few things have to be considered:

1 - effectiveness of those churches;
2 - style of churches - I believe it takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people;
3 - the number of people yet to be reached.

One presenter today gave a "formula" for figuring out how many people in any given community there are to reach. It looks like this:

a - (b X 2c) = d

a = Population
b = Number of churches in community
c = Average church attendance
d = Number of unreached, unchurched and dechurched - people who need Jesus in other words.

If you plug in these numbers for Merrillville you get this:

32,000 - (48 X 200) = 22,400 of people who need Jesus in Merrillville alone.

I think that alone is reason enough for more new churches in that area.

In Seattle

I'm in Seattle for a few days for a Church Planting Training event. The first item on my agenda was to make the journey to see the original Starbucks in Pike's Place Market. Not much really to look at but the live music outside of it was good. Then after strolling around Pike's Place a little while I went to Mars Hill's new downtown campus. This is their 6th campus that they have opened. What is cool is that they bought an old strip joint. So now what was used for evil is now used for good. The Bible would call this "redemption." When something gets bought back for good it is redeemed. Got to love that.

The coffee was good, but worshiping Jesus who bought us back was even better!

The Email Giant

Anyone who works in an environment that uses email knows how easily this tool can become a slave master. I realized recently that my inbox had become my "to-do" list. As a result I was not using my time based on a set of priorities for the day, but letting email set the pace for my day. This was hurting my effectiveness and frankly it was no fun. This began my search for some productivity tips.

That is when I stumbled on this video from Merlin Mann who is a productivity guru in the online world. In the video he had some really helpful things to say regarding email. The video is called Zero Inbox and is at the very bottom. Be forewarned, it is about an hour. It is totally worth it though. It has changed how I handle email.

Here is what I have found most helpful from the stuff I have read:

• Batch process email - that is to say only handle email at certain times of the day. Some only read email 4 times a day. I have adopted the personal policy of only handling email once/hour when I'm in the office.
• NO email gets left in the inbox - it has to go somewhere. When I process email, they all go in one of 4 spots: Trash Can (becaue I've handled it and don't need it anymore), Archive (because I may need it later but I don't need it in my inbox), Read (to read later) or Act folder (I create a task out of the email and store the email here until I accomplish the task at a later time. It also gets added to my task, but is handled when I designate)
• Another way to think of it is that with every email you do one of 5 things: Delegate, Delete, Respond, Defer or Do.
• Remove all warnings that you just received email - I'm too tempted to look at my inbox when I get the notice.

The great thing about all this is that it has actually worked for me these last 2 weeks. I love looking at an empty inbox knowing everything is processed and handled appropriately. And more importantly I don't feel like my life is being run by Microsoft Outlook. Rather I'm running it.

Focus

I have recently been reflecting on my need to focus more. By nature I'm a little ADD. I do like to keep moving and doing stuff, so it takes quite a bit of effort to just stop and focus on something for very long. There are so many things that feed this tendency.

• Email - it's the worst. With a little sound on my computer I am constantly distracted by new email. It beckons me to "pay attention to me because I am the most important thing you have to attend to right at this moment." Even though a lot of the time it is something that can wait on or a Forward of a joke or a "special offer" telling me how I can get 1 million dollars by sending some stranger $1 or any other number of stupid things that fill up my inbox.
• Interruptions at the door - the culture of Suncrest is that a closed door is just a signal that you need to knock before you interrupt....not that you shouldn't interrupt at all.
  
• A "to do list" that is way, way to big - okay now I'm really sounding like I'm complaining, but it is true. It's way too big.
• Things I want to do - let's face it, we all have things we don't like to do at work but we have to do. Then there are things we want to do, but may not be the most necessary at the moment. Many times I just choose to do the things I want to do instead of focusing on the more important things.
• Going to the bathroom - okay, maybe a personal problem...or maybe I need to cut back on the coffee. Either way, it is a distraction.
  

This is just a partial list, but you get the idea and I am sure you relate. Because of all this I have been digesting some productivity stuff and found some sage wisdom out there. I am currently trying out some of it as it relates to the evil monster of email...and it's working! I will post some of the best advice soon. For now, I felt compelled to just comment on the fact that for all of us the cost is high if we don't FOCUS. Focus gives us clarity to our work. Focus maximizes our effectiveness on whatever it is we are doing. Focus makes us an invaluable contributor to the teams we serve on.

Growing by Serving

It struck me last week when reading that day's 21 Day Challenge passage that sometimes I miss the boat on what it really takes to mature. When most talk about maturing in their faith they almost exclusively talk about "learning something." I think that is why so much emphasis is placed on the sermon in a service. People feel like if they learn some thing then they are growing. The reality is that just because we hear something doesn't mean we have grown. We have to actually put it into practice before we can say we have grown.

In Ephesians 4:7-16, though, a model is given that doesn't have much to do with listening to a sermon or studying. It has everything to do with serving though. In fact, in verse 13 and 14 Paul is so clear that we mature to the point that we are not "tossed back and forth" by deceit when we SERVE. I almost always talk about the motivation for service being twofold:

1. Jesus said to do it;
2. It is a great experience.

Those reasons are still valid, but Scripture also teaches that the main result of serving is that we actually mature in four ways:

1. Unity with other Christ followers;
2. Experience a vibrant relationship with Christ;
3. Have confidence in what we believe;
4. Have the ability to speak truth to other Christ followers.

Having said that, I don't want to minimize the role of sermons in our growth. I have to say that since I am a preacher. :) But perhaps, we should not forget that most growth actually comes from putting into practice what we hear. That is never more true than when we are serving.