It's not about the chocolate

Several days after my breakfast with Rich, Pastor Scott gathered all of the full time ministry staff together for an all day meeting. We spent a significant amount of our meeting in prayer and sharing what God had been doing in our lives personally and in our ministry. While God's promised that "where two or three are gathered, there I am with them" with our staff, where two or three are gathered, there's sure to be a wild and fun time. Add to that being holed up in a room all day and it's like the time I doused the charcoal with so much lighter fluid the lid to the grill caught fire. Though you may not believe it, we did have a very focused and productive day.

It was neat to see each of us participate and contribute to the discussion. And while our backgrounds are quite diverse, we span a range of ages and our approach to ministry sometimes differ, we were uniquely unified throughout the meeting. It was an exercise I thoroughly enjoyed.

As I write this, eight months later, it's been fun to recollect to that first meeting and especially to look at our original worksheets.
You can see how much we left on the cutting room floor because we felt it was implied, in an effort to keep the statement short and memorable. Actually, we figuratively left the floor covered with ideas and worksheets throughout this process - either the Elmer's was defective or only the good ideas were sticking.

With prayer interspersed in the interim, we reconvened several times after that initial meeting to see if we were comfortable with our work and the direction we were headed. Pastor Scott then shared it with the staff for comment and reaction and then the Elders. Having received very constructive feedback, but limited negative reaction, we started preparing for the February message series.

The irony of that first meeting is that it wasn't until I started composing this post that I realized that in addition to the bottled water, soda and pretzels that we were munching on during the all day meeting, there were also M&M's on the table. None of us realized it at the time that M&M's would come to the forefront several months later.

Making an M&M

I really like m&m's, especially Peanut m&m's (the plain one's are just a little too sweet). I pick my favorite NASCAR driver based on who drives the m&m's sponsored car. It might be a little bit of a stretch, but m&m's excite me, so much so that I thought it only appropriate to celebrate my 200th post by talking about them!

In the past month at Grace, M and M has a new meaning

M eeting PEOPLE where they are
M oving PEOPLE to where God wants them to be.

The new statement captures the purpose of Grace Church since it was organized back in 1970. We just finished a month-long message series dissecting what Grace Church has been and continues to be all about. If you weren't able to attend any of the services or hear the messages, you need to check them out. I keep harping on how God's doing something in our midst unlike anything I've ever seen and He just keeps adding more and more to it. Go Berean on me and check with other Grace-folk and see if it's just me.

February was a good month, but I almost forgot about the journey that started on June 20, 2006 that got us to where we are today.

Having closed on the 12.5-acre property purchase in the Fall of 2005, Pastor Scott and I had been working on creating the process we would follow to lead us in figuring out how God wanted to make use of the newly acquired property for the sake of His Kingdom. We'd recently connected with Rich, who's involved in a local ministry, helping them with strategic planning etc. and Scott asked me to meet with him. We had breakfast together on June 20, 2006.

Most of what Rich shared was a 60-minute review of my Master's program, but material that had gotten fragmented in the deep recesses of my mind. While the restaurant didn't serve any chocolate candies that melt in your mouth, not in your hand, little did I know that our breakfast would chart the course for the next eight months or the role chocolate would play down the road.

We stole the restroom from Chili's

You may have noticed that we renovated the lobby bathrooms in the past year, actually it was a year ago January that we did the work in the Alpha lobby restrooms. If you have been in the lobby restrooms, you know that we did some unique decorating schemes in those rooms. I think they turned out well, but the rooms are definitely unique. So the other day when my wife and I were having lunch at Chili's and I used the restroom, it dawned on me that the men's restroom in the Grace lobby is actually the restroom that Chili's wanted in their restaurants, but I think that we did a more effective job at catching the theme Chili's had in mind. So you need to check out our lobby restrooms, if you haven't already.

Lord, please send lots and lots of snow

It first struck me after we had lived for a few weeks in an apartment complex in Lawrenceville, NJ. The architect designed the apartments in clusters of 16 situated around a central garden-type thing. It looked like a nice, homey, apartment complex where the residents socialized regularly. Yeah, what was I thinking?!? Looks can be deceiving. At the end of each day, each of us would retreat to our cells and lock in until it was time to head out for work the next day. Farm country, at least my experience of country living, hasn't been much different.

I've gotten to talk with our neighbors only a handful of times...
-when we were all out chiseling the ice disguised as snow last week
-when the tree fell on our backyard shed last summer
-when we were shoveling snow last winter
-when we asked them if we could help with work around the house for them as part of SALT2005
No wonder God sends so much snow, it's the only chance we get to talk to our neighbors!

Most interesting was the response when we took our neighbors a breakfast pastry just before Christmas. We had close to a dozen to deliver, but much to my wife's and my surprise, they invited us in to chat!

Talking with neighbors is much of what I watched my parents do as they planted churches. In the Philippine culture, just about every block had a family run business where you could buy a soda and a snack - much like a vending machine, except it was a much more personable experience. These Sari-sari stores were a regular gathering place on the block. Want to get to know people, hang out at the Sari-sari store for a while. And that's how I watched my parents start churches. What is the Sari-sari store equivalent in Lititz?

This is elementary stuff. I see two choices: either each of us walks across the room, driveway or wherever we need to walk, OR, we join the children of the world in praying for lots and lots of snow.

The Enemy's Playbook

Gleaning from my youthful observations, both past and present, I think I've seen some trends in the way our enemy (the aforementioned roaring Lion) does his thing to thwart the progress of the Gospel. And it came to mind again during Sunday's message.

In the Philippines, I observed a culture, if not a whole nation, for which the spirit realm was accepted as reality, though feared to such extents that it held them captive. My childhood friends were literally scared to death of the ghosts and spirits that haunted the rice mill and lurked among the graves at the cemetery. It was obvious to me how the enemy used their common acceptance of the spirit realm in an attempt to hold the power of the Gospel at bay.

I contrast that with my common day observances now and it fascinates me how different a playbook the enemy uses in the US culture. The spirit realm is laughed off as child's play in our culture. But the enemy's playbook would make Bill Belichick proud. In the US I see him using our busyness to hold the Gospel at bay, among a list of other offensive/defensive schemes.

And I often see the church playing right into the enemy's plan... we, the church, simply add more busyness to people's lives. As was mentioned on Sunday, we need to resist busyness for the sake of the Gospel, even if it means not participating or our family members participating in everything everyone else is doing, whether it be rec leagues, community activities or, heaven forbid, some church events.

In order for us to walk across the room, the driveway or whatever you need to walk across, we need time in our schedules to build relationships. Which leads me to tomorrow's post...

Free Squirrely!

This is a follow-up to my January 15th post... Apparently our friendly visitor during the NFC Championship game took his/her whilrwind tour global. I'd like to think that like Free Willy, I had a part in letting that poor varmit live out his/her dream.

Skittering Stowaway

That's not called shoveling

Calling what all of us did yesterday (I pity you if you left it until today) shoveling just doesn't do it justice. I've determined that chiseling is a more appropriate term.

It was one time that I was glad I have a one car garage.

For the record

For the record, let me state publicly that I've advocated a daily siesta break of up to an hour or so in the office, but have always been rebuffed by my co-workers. They prefer to get home early than have a longer break during the day.

While environmental factors come into play, growing up in the Philippines I was accustomed to most businesses closing from 12 noon to around 2 pm for the daily siesta break. I always thought they were onto something and now there's a scientific study to support it.

You can't say I didn't try.

Get to know Judy

One of the things I appreciate about the company that we have hired to clean our facility is their relationship with us. Though the owners don’t attend our church, they have made a concerted effort to get to know not only our staff but our congregation as well. They are on a first-name basis with a lot of people. One of their staff members is Judy. She attended Grace many years ago and then stopped attending for awhile. When she joined Personal Touch Cleaning, it wasn’t long before she was back worshipping with us again. Two times a week Judy comes in and cleans the church offices, and it’s been fun for us as a staff to get to know her. To Judy, it is more than a job to clean our facility, offices, and bathrooms. It is her ministry and way to contribute to the body of Christ. She cares about our staff members and often asks how we are doing and keeps up with the different things going on in our lives. She also cares about the people we are ministering to as a church, helps out on Sunday mornings in the children’s area, and things like that. So, though she serves in a behind-the-scenes capacity and works for a company that is providing a service to the church, I appreciate all that Judy does and the role that she has at Grace.

Realtime feedback

I came across this article earlier today, wow, what a concept. I'm really curious as to how it actually worked. Was the speaker reading his text msgs throughout his talk? Did he respond to any of the msgs while he was talking? Very interesting though, I give him credit for taking the risk.

Thus far, we've only used text msgs at Grace to communicate about service information between the people on the stage and the techs supporting them on the Mezzanine. Oh, and last week I used one to pull someone out of a meeting.

Let's Go Racin'!!!

The Daytona 500 is this Sunday, time to strap in for another NASCAR season, even if at 36 races, it's too long of a season. I'm excited. To top all that, the all-chocolate front row is set, how cool is that. In the chocolate wars on the track, M&M/Mars beat out Hershey, for this round anyway.

If you want to join the Grace Church NASCAR Fantasy League, click here.
Group ID: 35122
Password: speedy

A couple of teams are already signed up:
Gilliland's Island
HurriKAHNES
GoJimmie!!!
Speed Gangsta!

Boogity, boogity, boogity!!!

Where is God Working?

The principles in Henry Blackaby and Claude King's book, Experiencing God, ring in my mind constantly and I'm always asking myself, "Where is God working?"

If you were at last Sunday's service at Grace, you got an idea that this is an exciting month at Grace and there's more to come! I'm excited about what God is doing - it's neat to see the results/answers to prayers we started praying six plus months ago. I'm excited to see all levels of our ministry doing the same thing and pointed in the same direction. After much prayer and searching for where God is working, it's fun to see God use people to take those principles and find creative ways to apply them in ways that make them stick in our minds.

With all of the excitement in Lititz, it struck me that some of the blogs I monitor on a regular basis are all excited about what God is doing in their churches, particularly pointing at their plans for tomorrow. Coincidince or is God working in unique ways across the country?
Gary Lamb - Ridge Stone Church
Perry Noble - NewSpring Church
Steven Furtick - Elevation Church

Join me in praying that God would open the eyes of all of us as to where He is working, how He is challenging us to join Him and that He would protect all of us from prowling Lion seeking whom he may devour.

Filling out child abuse clearance forms

If my seat belt analogy from yesterday didn't stick; why don't we hitchhike anymore? My impression was that early in transportation history, hitchhiking was an accepted form of getting from one place to another. When was the last time you hitchhiked or picked up a hitchhiker? Isn't the reason why we don't hitchhike comparable to the reason why we should check the criminal and child abuse histories of everyone who works with children?

The child abuse clearance form requires you to fill out every address at which you've ever lived and every person you've ever lived with. I had so many I had to send in a separate page with all of my listings. When you're parents are missionaries and move at least every four years, combined with being a boarding student in grades 4-7 and 12, on top of four years of college, the list gets quite long. If for nothing else, it was a great exercise of my brain functions as these rows of Cold Case files hadn't been accessed in decades. Here's what mine looks like:

Previous Addresses (since 1975)
1975-1976 Princeton, NJ
1976-1977 Lipa City, Batangas, Philippines
1977-1978 Karuhatan, Valenzuela, Bulacan, Philippines
1978-1980 Labo, Camarines Norte, Philippines
1980-1981 Princeton, NJ
1982-1986 Villa Carolina, Muntinglupa, Philippines
1986-1987 Havertown, PA
1987-1989 Galas, Quezon City, Philippines
1989-1990 Gapan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
1990-1990 Cape May Court House, NJ
1990-1992 Langhorne, PA
1992-1992 Gapan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
1992-1993 Langhorne, PA
1993-1993 Skillman, NJ
1993-1994 Langhorne, PA
1994-1994 Wallingford, PA
1994-1995 Princeton, NJ
1995-1998 Lawrenceville, NJ
1998-2007 Lititz, PA

Household Members
P. Norton
L. Norton
S. Mittlestat
L. Agdepa
E. Bagasin
J. Westfall
N. Townsend
A. Miller
A. Walker
P. Bunnell
B. Burgess
J. Van Dam
J. Hochrein
M. Brussel
E. Dolbeck
P. Licata
T. Snyder
G. Peters
R. Thompson
A. Wong
M. Young
P. Colburn
E. Norton

Why we do criminal/child abuse checks on our volunteers?

Our children's ministries (daycare, Christian school and traditional church ministries for children) have been at the core of Grace's philosophy of ministry since the beginning... if we reach the children, it will give us opportunities to build relationships with their parents. With a State-certified daycare and a Christian school, we have government standards with which we need to comply - many of which are designed to protect the children in our care. In the same way, though not government mandated, we have set standards to protect the children in all of our ministries. While their protection is in the hands of The Creator, we do take do-diligence steps for each child's safety by checking the child abuse and criminal records of the volunteers who work with minors. It's a step we feel is necessary to exercise the best stewardship over the children in our care. I was contemplating this process recently and thought of the following analogy.

In my lifetime, US vehicles have always had seat belts. I remember riding in my Opa's Chrysler's which were only equipped with lap belts, but the cars had belts. My assumption is that the first vehicles didn't have any seat belts, but that before long, either the manufacturers or the government started installing them because they provided increased safety. If I were to ride in your car, and I put on the seat belt, would you take that to mean that I didn't trust your driving skills? No, we've all accepted and it's actually law, that everyone should buckle-up when in a vehicle. Buckling-up isn't an indicator of our mistrust of the driver or of other drivers, it's a step that increases our safety.

In my thinking, the criminal and child abuse checks, though a review of private information, are very similar to my regular use of a seat belt. It's a step that increases our safety. It's not a sign of mistrust or an indicator that we question the people who are caring for children. It's a stewardship exercise that communicates that people matter.

That said, I know filling out the forms can be laborious, especially when the child abuse clearance requires you to list every person you've ever lived with. As you'll see tomorrow, I challenge anyone to come up with a longer list than the one I had.