This mailer is going to 50K homes inviting people to our new series, "Help! I'm a Parent". I'm confident this is going to be a fun and helpful topic.

By the way, none of the pics on the back are stock photography. They were taken by volunteers on our Photog team, including my sister-in-law Corey. Nope this isn't my way of pimping her business. Just highlighting some talent. Look at those kids!

As part of helping us refocus, I'm doing a series of blogs (Church is Messy) that hopefully brings clarity to why we do what we do as a church and manages expectations as to who we ARE and who we ARE NOT.

This is important, because for some reason it's easy to adopt an idealistic view of what the church can be or is supposed to do. It seems that when we read about the early church in Scripture we gravitate towards thinking it was flawless. It wasn't. As a matter of fact, it wasn't even close.

Below is a 8 min video from the author of one of my favorite books, "Spirituality for the Rest of Us". If you get a chance to watch this, it will bring a little perspective to those moments when you or I get upset w/ something we've seen or experienced in the local church setting. Church is messy. There are times you will be offended, frustrated or in strong disagreement. There are times you'll be convinced that the church is not doing enough or has "dropped the ball" on something important. You're probably right. The church is, and always has been, flawed. Despite that reality, the local church is still the hope of the world!!!

In his book, Think Orange , Reggie Joiner references Acts 15 as one of the most unique passages of Scripture. It is the story of the first church business meeting. The discussion and debate centered around the topic of circumcision (yes, I'm refraining myself from linking to an external site detailing this). At any rate, there was a huge argument over whether or not non-Jewish converts should be required to practice the tradition of circumcision that was commonplace among the Jews. A surprisingly number of Jewish leaders were insisting that it was necessary for salvation.

Fast forward to the end of the debate. James, a key leader at the church in Jerusalem, stood up and made the following statement: "And so my judgment is that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God." (Acts 15:19) Brilliant! One of the early church leaders understood the importance of making it as easy as possible for people to connect with God. He realized that when we elevate our personal preferences, and traditions, and convictions to the point that it becomes difficult for people to become Christ Followers... there is a problem!

That's why at Great Lakes Church we have one filter that we use for every decision: Are we making it easy for people to connect with God or difficult? Does our style make it easy? Do our systems make it easy? Do our volunteers make it easy? Does our teaching make it easy? Do our kids programs make it easy? If not, we change it. It's that simple.

"Relaunching the church" simply means that we're refocusing ourselves on why we exist and asking those who attend GLC to make the same commitment that 30 people made in my parents living room in the fall of 2008... to be CONTRIBUTORS rather than CONSUMERS. Here's what I'm asking everyone to do:

This happens to all of us. We hear something, see something or experience something that quickly elevates in our mind to being a much bigger deal than it actually is.

I'm not making this up. When we started Great Lakes Church I highly doubted we'd make it past our first year. No, I wasn't dumb enough to actually tell someone this... but I added up all our resources, the size of the launch team and the amount of effort needed to pull this off and I was convinced that we were doomed! 

When we sent out our first mailer for the "Grand Opening" and immediately lost our lease with the school district, I absolutely believed that my worst nightmare had become reality. We called an emergency meeting with some of our launch team and it took me a few minutes to even join them in the living room 'cause I was too choked up and kept wiping away my tears that would stop coming. I'm embarassed to say it, but I was on the verge of going into one of those ugly "Oprah moment" cries.

What was I afraid of? If my worst fears would have been realized, I'd still have the friends I have today... my family would still believe in me...  and I might actually be writing this from a beach in San Diego!

It's pointless to say, "Ignore your fear". That won't make it go away. But I can tell you from experience that you need to walk into your fear. It's an exaggerated view of reality. Surround yourself w/ "go-getters". Years ago I coined a phrase that FDR stole for his inaugural address: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!" I should have copyrighted it when I had the chance.

Dave

PS: If Great Lakes Church is YOUR church or you're considering making it your church, there is no better time to join us than this Sunday as we kick off our new series, "RELAUNCH". We're going to be refocusing ourselves on the who, what and why behind the reason Great Lakes Church exists!

This is a no-brainer. We become like the people we hang out with. Proverbs 13:20 says, "Walk with the wise and become wise; associate with fools and get in trouble." Seriously, I don't understand why anybody would allow an ongoing negative person into their life! It's just stupid.

There is a "Christian" radio station in Milwaukee called WVCY. One of their daily shows is called, "Crosstalk". The couple of times I've listened to it has left me nearly suicidal. I literally wanted to shoot myself in the head. And no, I am not exaggerating. Every program is about how messed up America is... how pathetic the church is... or how apathetic Christians are. What's the result? A bunch of angry and ticked off Christians.

Negative people are a drain. But they also have lots of power. With their words or demeanor they can ruin someone's day. Over time, they can persuade an optimistic person to see things in a pessimistic way. They constantly point out the wrongs in other people or other ministries. They like to share their "concerns". They have lots of suggestions on how things should be done differently.

Don't be fooled. Negative people don't actually do anything productive themselves. They just destroy and discourage others. Run from them. Stay away. Give them the bird if you need to. Have nothing to do with ongoing negative people. Philippians 4:8 clearly lays out the type of thinking and people we should allow into our lives. Look for positive people and surround yourself with them.

• What if we made our physical and spiritual health the number one goal, instead of efficiency and accomplishment?  
• What if we proactively scheduled times of rest into our calendar?
• What if we decided to say "no" to a lot more stuff?

PS - We were having technical problems during our first service yesterday, so here is the intro video you missed...

Continued from an earlier blog post...

In the church world, we evaluate success based on how many people attend, the size of the staff, how many programs we can offer, the size of the budget, sq. footage of the building, and a score of other ways. The result is burned out volunteers, exhausted budgets, depressed pastors and discouraged members. In the church world, we can get by with these unhealthy ways of measuring success because we couch it in spiritual language like, "We've got to reach more people for Jesus!!!!" Who's going to argue with that?

The reason this is a mirage is because our definition of success changes based on whoever (English majors... is it "whomever"?) or whatever seems to be our measuring stick at the time.

Are you measuring your marriage against another couple's marriage? Your salary against someone else's salary? Your house against someone else's house? Your church size against someone else's church size? Your circle of friends against someone else's circle of friends? Your body against someone else's body? It's an endless game and it very quickly leads to discouragement! Ironically, the allure of having more is also the first "trap" Satan used on the human race (Gen 3:1-19).

Imagine if our view of success changed from what we are "achieving" to what we are "becoming". The apostle Paul made this transition in his own life and wrote about it in Philippians 3:7-10.