Isn’t That New Video That Says Jesus Hates Religion Awesome?!

I’ve had that question posed to me on and offline about a dozen times over the past week.  The video itself is quite a phenomenon.  I like the video.  It makes some powerfully compelling points and is well done art.  It does what art is supposed to do, it invokes an emotional reaction.  But it has sparked quite a debate online.  As with anything, I think we should always be very cautious about letting a single source – be that a news outlet, a friend, a pastor, or poet/rapper – form our entire opinion on a subject.

I came across a great critique of the video last week, but I didn’t post it.  (When I say “great,” that does NOT mean that I agreed with everything that was said.)  And then this week I saw that there had been a conversation between the artist who made the video and the blogger who critiqued it.  We can learn SO many lessons from this whole thing – not the least of which is how to deal with each other when we disagree.  So, I BEG you to follow the link below to the “Gospel Coalition Blog.”  In the blog he provides the video so that you can watch it.  Notice at the top of the blog he provides a link to the “Follow Up Post” that he wrote AFTER he spoke with Bethke.  I encourage you to read the blog, watch the video, and then scroll back up to the top and click on the “Follow Up” blog and read it also.

After all of that, you will be well informed on both sides of the debate this video has stirred, and I trust the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth.

Gospel Coalition Blog

Vision Meetings {3 of 3}

OK – first the background.  We had two big meetings to try and catch our faith family up on some very important news around Calvary.  A lot of people came – but a lot of people didn’t.  I’ve been trying to share the information in these blog posts.  Be sure to read the other two posts to get all the info:

What’s Good at Calvary?

What Is Challenging Us?

As I shared in the last post, the finances in our General Fund have been really strained in 2011.  This has been the biggest struggle for us, and has held us back in some ways this past year.  One of the reasons for the financial stress (aside from decreased offerings) is that we have not been able to get “The Cairn” project finished.  This project has taken far longer than we ever imagined.  As a result, we are carrying expenses for that project (Manager’s salary, rent, utilities) with no income at all – something that we did not think would be true.

THE CAIRN:

The Cairn is a new ministry project in downtown Winchester.  We are renovating a 150 year old, 3-story building at 17 South Main Street.  In this building we be placing a full service coffee house on the 1st floor, and a state of the art Teen Center on the 2nd & 3rd Floors.  The Coffee House will be a relational environment, a place where people are invited to gather, mingle, relax, and enjoy good conversation and relationships.  It is our intent that the coffee house will provide the type of environment that fosters the development of real community.  The Coffee House will serve gourmet “fair trade” coffee from around the world.  The mere act of buying a cup of coffee will be doing good, as it will help to provide a fair and liveable wage for a third world farmer and his family.  The coffee shop will also serve a light food menu, host live music, and possibly even eventually be the sight of a new place of worship on the weekends.  Unlike most small businesses, the Coffee House will open debt free, with a freshly remodeled state of the art space and equipment.  Because of this, and the hope that it will be well supported by our faith family, it is our goal that the Coffee House will become self-sustaining as soon as possible.  In fact, we HOPE that it will become self-sustaining AND be able to help pay for the functioning of the Teen Center upstairs, AND be able to contribute financially to other ministries and causes locally and around the world.  Will it take time to get to this stage?  Yes.  Definitely.  Is it possible?  Absolutely.

The Teen Center will occupy the 2nd floor initially, and eventually we hope, the 3rd floor.  The Teen Center will be 3000+ sq. ft of space dedicated to kids.  A state of the art sound system, gaming systems, hang out areas, enrichment programs, loving volunteers, rockin’ concerts, and more.  The Center will help us reach out to kids who our churches aren’t presently reaching, give them a place to call their own, and set kids on a path to know Jesus.

That’s the plan.  But here’s the thing.  It turns out that renovating a 3-story 150 year old building and opening two brand new businesses (Coffee House & Teen Center) is NOT an easy thing to do!  This project has turned out to be far more difficult and far more costly than we ever imagined.

Why?

A number of reasons.  Basically, from a construction perspective, everything that was open for interpretation has gone against us:

• We’ve had to install a Sprinkler System in the ENTIRE building before we could open any part of the building ($85,000).
• We’ve had to build a second set of stairs off of each floor and provide a “fire protected envelope” from the third floor all the way to the outside of the building – which required not only new stairs, but the installation of a new backdoor exit as well.
• Once demolition was underway and we exposed the floor/ceiling joists, we discovered that the structural support for the 2nd floor was inadequate to support the number of kids in the Teen Cetner that the space would allow.  This meant we had to tear out the floor on the first floor, dig down under the building, poor concrete footers, have structural steel hauled in by cranes, and erect that steel inside the 1st Floor Coffee House to support the 2nd Floor Teen Center ($50,000).
• We’ve been required to build 5 brand new handicap accessible bathrooms for the first two floors alone.
• We’ve had to replace the glass in the front windows with shatter proof glass.
• We discovered that the existing elevator shaft and opening was not large enough for a modern elevator.  Though we are not required to have the elevator until we open the third floor – we had to go ahead and dig the pit below the building, poor the concrete, and construct the shaft itself on floors 1 & 2 while we are building those out.  To do so later, after construction was already completed on these floors would have been catastrophic from an operational perspective. ($60,000)
• As it turns out – when it comes to buying the equipment for a coffee house, whatever number you might guess that the equipment is going to cost, you’re probably going to be too low.  Did you know that a commercial espresso machine can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to as much as $100,000?!  We’re much closer to the lower number than we are the higher one, but building out this space has come with a staggering learning curve.
• I could go on and on and on…but you get the idea.

The people of Calvary have continued to give faithfully to “GO,” and it is those funds that are finishing out the space.  But the cashflow has not kept up with the outgo.  We had to pause the project a few months ago.

There have been times over the past few months that finishing the space has seemed far from our reach.  At times I have questioned whether or not we heard God clearly.

Our estimate a month ago was that we are still about $550,000 from opening the space.  The “GO” funds have been coming in at a pace of about $3,000 per week.  Do the math.  That’s 183 weeks – that’s over 3 years!!  Can that be right?  Did God REALLY want us to develop this ministry?  And if He did, why wasn’t He supplying the funds that were needed?  God and I had some pretty tough conversations where I would just say – “Lord, if you want this to happen, you’re going to have to do something, because I feel like we’ve hit a brick wall.  I feel like I’ve done things wrong, or led us down the wrong direction.  God – if this is going to get done, you’re going to have to do it.”

And so — He did!

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:

Calvary was recently given a very large grant from a private foundation.  The grant is for finishing “The Cairn.”  The money will come in over the next few months – and the total will be between $400,000 – $500,000!!!!  The continued contributions of our members are important — we still have a lot of work to do and thousands of dollars to raise in order to get the Teen Center open.  But we are so close to seeing this become a reality!

CHRISTMAS OFFERING:

We’ve been collecting our Christmas Offering all month.  It’s our way of saying “Happy Birthday Jesus.”  It’s also a way for us to push back against the materialism of this season in America, and “put our money where our mouths are.”  We are supporting two causes with the offering.  Part of the money will go to THE CAIRN.  With the ongoing weekly contributions and the grant money, we project that the Coffee House on the first floor will open with the next few months and that the Teen Center will be open by summer IF we can raise about $30,000 for THE CAIRN in our Christmas Offering.  The other cause is to build a well in Quanamithe, Haiti.  This will be a large capacity commercial well – serving tens of thousands of people.  A child dies every 20 seconds in the world due to contaminated water – a problem that experts say could be solved if we spent just $20 Billion a year on Water Projects.  For comparison – Americans spend $455 Billion a year on Christmas! (presumably celebrating the birth of our homeless, penniless, savior – the one who said He came to preach good news to the poor, comfort the broken hearted, and heal the sick)  It is part of a much larger ministry center and outreach project being led by Vapor Sports Ministries.  The Scobee family, members of our church, have been carrying the burden for establishing this well on their own – and they’ve been trying to raise the funds for quite some time now.  The original cost was estimated at about $60,000.  Approximately $30,000 is still needed.

I hope you’ll be a part of our Christmas offering this year.

 

Vision Meetings {2 of 3}

{This is Post 2 of 3}

We conducted two vision meetings at Calvary over the past week.  Considering the time of year and how hectic everyone’s schedules are – we had good participation, with about 125 people attending one of the meetings.  This is good, but that means there’s a lot of people who weren’t able to attend.  Each meeting lasted an hour, and went pretty well.  I can’t begin to do it justice in this post, but I’ve had several people ask me to relay to them what they missed, so here’s my best attempt.

I broke the meeting down into several sections:

• “What’s Good?”
• “What’s Challening Us?”
• “The Big Announcement!”
• “Christmas Offering”

“What is Challenging Us?”

This is an incredibly easy one to answer – it’s finances.  We haven’t said a lot about this, because we NEVER want money to become the focal point at Calvary.  And yet, the reality is that the General Fund has lagged behind all year, and it has been incredibly challenging.

Now, let me remind you – we’ve had a great year.  If you didn’t read the first post in this series, you should stop reading and go back and read it now.  Things are good at Calvary.  I’m about to tell you what is bad, but you need to hear the bad news in the context of all that is GOOD!  The lack of finances has not stopped our growth as a congregation or taken our focus off of Christ.  And as you will see, though this has been challenging, not all of the news here is bad if you dig under the surface and attempt to understand WHY it’s happening.

A Word of Preparation/Caution:  I’m going to share some real numbers here.  To some, these numbers will seem impossibly large and will be difficult to relate to.  In my first ministry, back in 1995, our annual budget was about $36,000 per year.  So sometimes these numbers seem rediculous to me too.  However, before comparing us to another church or situation, please keep in mind that everything is on an economy of scale.  Our books are always open, and you can request a copy of our financials at any time.  If you have a question, just ask.

This year is the first year since 2005 that we have not seen growth in our General Fund giving.  We have actually seen a slight decline, and this has made it difficult to meet our obligations.  At one point this year, we were about $70,000 behind (this is equivalent to just over 3 weeks of our budget) in income verses expenses, but some of that ground is currently being made up.  We clamped down hard as a staff beginning in June, and have managed to spend 7% less than we had budgeted through the end of November.  That means that we’ve actually spent $70,235 LESS than we had planned to spend.  But even with those cuts, we are still way behind in what we anticipated the offerings would be – so we still have a shortfall of $38,976.44 (as of the end of November).

A few important points to consider…

• We projected Modest Growth:  We built our 2011 budget projecting modest growth in giving from 2010 to 2011.  We did experience 20% growth in attendance, but we actually experienced a decrease of $175 per week in giving.
• Our “Per Capita” Giving Dropped Significantly:  If you take the total offering for a week and divide it by the total number of people in attendance, you arrive at a “per capita” number — or the amount given per person in attendance.  Our Per Capita had been rising steadily for the past 4-5 years, but this year it dropped by $4 per person.

• The giving per person at our Clear Fork Campus is low:  Numbers from our Clear Fork Campus are factored into our numbers.  Breathitt County, where the campus is located, is the 3rd Poorest County in the Country when going by Median Income.  This has had a negative effect on our per capita numbers.
• Our Teen Ministry Numbers are Up:  This is a great thing!  But, like our Clear Fork numbers, this has contributed to the decrease in per person giving numbers.  Those beautiful, wonderful, awesome teenagers don’t give a whole lot.
• The Economy:  During the first few years of the current economic downturn, we did not see any visible signs of the financial chaos in our world affecting Calvary.  This is no longer true.  There are many congregation members who have modified their giving habits in response to challenges and strains that they are facing in their personal situations.
• Kingdom Generosity:  Even during this financially challenging time, we have encouraged our faith family to continue giving outside of the walls of Calvary.  As mentioned in the previous post, our people are giving almost $200,000 per year thru sponsorships with Compassion International.  Our members also continue to financially support a number of great causes directly, and we continue to take up special offerings and contribute to other worthwhile causes over and above our regular general fund giving as God leads us.  Surely this has had an impact on General Fund giving, and yet its hard to feel all that bad about it.
• GO Campaign:  We are just about 20 months into the 36 month GO! Campaign.  The people of Calvary have given 5234 gifts for a total of $499,542.60 during that time.  Quick math will tell you that this giving adds up to over $6,000 per week (this is the average, but much of that was giving in large lump sums early on.  We see about $3000 per week typically).  This money has been spent to launch the Clear Fork Campus; to launch the Vintage Worship Service; to do some Master Planning for the Redwing Drive Campus & the 50 acres at Boonesboro Road; to invest in some much needed technology for the school; to launch the Cairn – our coffee house & teen center in downtown Winchester; and to give $45,000 away to other missions, ministries, and causes.  If this money had gone into our General Fund, we would have no financial problems at all.  In the first year of GO!, this campaign had no visible effect on our General Fund giving – but this year it has.  Some families have made a choice between fulfilling their GO pledges or giving to the General Fund.
• Changes in Family Status:  Cathy Smith, our Administrator, poured through financial data between last year and this year and identified a number of families who had experienced a significant change in status.  Some retired, some lost jobs, some moved away.  These families accounted for approximately $75,000 that was given last year but not this year.
• The Slow Progress of the Cairn:  The Cairn, our downtown coffee house & teen center ministry has taken far longer to complete than any of us originally anticipated.  It turns out that renovating a 150 year old building and opening up two new businesses is quite a difficult thing to do!!!  As a result, we are still absorping costs associated with this ministry in our general fund that we never imagined we’d still be carrying this far down the line.  Our original intent was that we would complete this project as the money came in, and that we would not borrow the funds necessary to complete it.  This has been difficult, and has made it even harder to cut costs.

Next Post:  “The Cairn, The Big Announcement, & The Christmas Offeirng”

Vision Meetings {1 of 3}

{Post One of Three}

We conducted two vision meetings at Calvary over the past week.  Considering the time of year and how hectic everyone’s schedules are – we had good participation, with about 125 people attending one of the meetings.  This is good, but that means there’s a lot of people who weren’t able to attend.  Each meeting lasted an hour, and went pretty well.  I can’t begin to do it justice in this post, but I’ve had several people ask me to relay to them what they missed, so here’s my best attempt.

I broke the meeting down into several sections:

• “What’s Good?”
• “What’s Challening Us?”
• “The Big Announcement!”
• “Christmas Offering”

“What’s Good?“

A lot!  There’s way more GOOD going on in our faith family than bad these days.  We are blessed, and God is working among us.

We have witnessed a record number of baptisms this year!

• Baptisms: Baptisms are a significant indicator of spiritual impact.  Each Baptism represents an individual who has publicly proclaimed Christ as Lord and submitted their life and will to His care and control.  The last 3 years have been some of our best in terms of number of Baptisms, and this year is already a record year, and we’re not done yet!
• Youth Ministry:  Our Youth Ministry is exploding under the leadership of our Youth Pastor, Steve Crosby.  Steve is a mature and Godly man who truly loves the kids.  Everyone knows that we have huge numbers of kids coming on Wednesdays for small groups and on Sunday nights for relationships & Worship (7pm).  What everyone doesn’t see is the incredible amounts of time that Steve spends with the kids — loving, investing, discipling kids in large groups, and sharing his life with them one on one.  His house is almost always full of kids, and he even spends time “skyping” with a few of the students who are away at college to maintain those accountability relationships.
• Clear Fork Campus:  We launched our Clear Fork Campus in Breathitt County just a litte over 1 year ago.  In that time the small congregation has grown from 1 person to almost 50 gathering together every Sunday.  The atmosphere is warm and loving, and we have celebrated 6 Baptisms in our first year!  Ron & Pam Leedy are serving as our Campus Pastors there, and they are doing a tremendous job.  We couldn’t be happier with how the first year has gone.  Statistics tell us that only 13% of Breathitt County attends church on any given weekend, and the 2010 Census Data revealed Breathitt County as the third poorest county in the country by Median Income.  It is a fertile and important ministry field for us!
• Kingdom Generosity:  The people of Calvary are proving themselves to be TRULY generous followers of Christ.  This year, approximately 23% of our General budget was spent on Ministries & Causes that reach far beyond the walls of Calvary Christian Church.  This is good – but it doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story.  Consider this:
1. We’ve set aside almost $45,000 in additional funds out of our “GO!” Capital Fund to give away to local & foreign causes.
2. The people of Calvary sponsored an additional 70 – 80 Compassion International kids this year, taking our total well up over 200 children.  At $38 per month, that means that you are giving approximately $8000 per month — it could add up to another $100,000 per year in Kingdom Generosity.  Compassion will give me an end of the year report soon, and I can’t wait to report the real numbers to you.
3. Many have begun supporting Ashley Wingate in Haiti, and a number of others have personal ministries that they have begun investing in all over the world.  I recently heard of one Calvary family who wanted to help finish a dormitory at a mission in Africa, but they didn’t have the cash available.  They took out a Home Equity loan to see it completed.  WOW!  Crazy?  Maybe.  But crazy for Jesus!  What’s crazier:  a home equity line to give children in Africa a place to live or a home equity loan to update my “more than adequate, but not quite nice enough for me” kitchen cabinets???!!!
4. Once again this year, you have provided over 600 gifts for Children & Families at Operation Happiness and at our Clear Fork Campus.  WAY TO GO!
5. We are attempting to raise AT LEAST $50,000 right now for our Christmas Offering.  Last Years offering was approximately $35,000.
• Leadership Development:  We have some great leaders emerging at Calvary.  Rachell Colebank has been able to raise up a number of key volunteers in Children’s Ministry; Cathy Smith has some outsanding servants emerging in our volunteer office/administration roles; Steve has great small group leaders, “the best he has ever had” according to him; Warren Colebank recently told me that his worship teams are overflowing with good hearted & talented people in a way that he has never seen before; Dickie Everman has a well established plan for raising up new leaders in Celebrate Recovery; and I am super excited about the quality of the 9 candidates that we are currently vetting for Deacons.  The Elders are currently reviewing these candidates, but they have already been examined and approved by the Pastors and Nominating Ministry Team.  These men are passionate, engaged, and committed.  I can’t wait for you to meet them and learn who they are.  It’s going to be a GREAT season of ministry with these men coming forward and joining those Deacons already living as “Servant Leaders” in our congregation.

Ashley & Jennifer had opportunity to hug each other in a Chicago airport. Jennifer was on her way to Kenya for three years. Ashley was returning home for a short break from Haiti.

• Ministry Engagement:  We’ve seen members of our faith family begin their own ministries this year.  Ashley Wingate became a missionary in Haiti for 2 years.  Jennifer Watson went to Kenya for three.  The Aldridge & Gasdorf families began an adoption ministry called “Choosing to Love.”  The Hacker family started the “Clean Start Ministry.”  The Woosley family launched a ministry for Seniors called “SOS.”
• Celebrate Recovery:  Dickie Everman is dong a great job with this ministry.  CR meets on Tuesday nights with 70-100 people gathering every week.  They also have “Step Studies” that meet almost every day of the week, and they have started two “Step Studies” in the Clark County Detention Center this year – one for men and one for women.
• Community Involvment:  We made a decision this past year that when faced with an option between doing something of “our own” on our Redwing Campus, or doing something “with the community” – we will choose “With the community.”  This has resulted in a number of interesting opportunities & situations.  To be clear, we don’t think that all of these events are HUGE or that anyone claims Jesus as their Savior simply because we hand out candy on Main Street for Halloween.  BUT, we do believe that it makes an important statement for us to “show up” in the community whenever we can.  Our resolve is that we will have “long obedience in the same direction.”  We will keep showing up – we hope gaining a little more trust and standing in our community each time that we do.  Here’s a few things that happened this year:
1. Halloween Mania:  We’ve gone downtown to participate in the community Halloween event for the past two years.  This year, we saw a significant turn in this event.  We handed out candy from our office location, and from the location of our future coffee house & teen center.  Our teens, close to 70 of them, prepared and performed a flash mob dance to the classic – “Thriller” several times throughout the night.  We also made candy available to a few businesses that needed a little help and didn’t have enough to hand out.  This ended up being a tremendously positive family event this year.
2. Christmas Parade:  Our worship team was invited to play an hour of Christmas music on the courthouse steps prior to the parade.  Calvary Christian School also had a float in the parade.
   

   The view of the crowd from the Courthouse steps right before the Christmas Parade. Our Worshp team played Christmas music for an hour.

3. Kidz Club:  This summer we launched a ministry to children who live in the Memorial Park Housing Complex.  This ministry has continued to the present.  About 15 children participate on a weekly basis.
4. High School:  Steve Crosby, our Youth Pastor, takes a team of volunteers into the High School one day a week to eat lunch with the kids, interact, and build relationships.
5. Shearer Elementary:  has invited us to get involved there and serve the school, children, and faculty in a variety of ways.
6. Property:  Our property on Boonesboro Road has been used by both Clark County Community Services & The Homeless Coalition for 5K races this year.
7. You – the people of Calvary are everywhere, serving on the boards of several of the nonprofits in town (Community Services, Homeless Coalition, New Beginnings), and volunteering in all of them!
• Calvary Christian School:  Our school is thriving under the leadership of our Principal, Ned Hess.  We now have about 325 students from 2 year olds thru the 7th Grade.  We have an outstanding group of teachers and staff, and the students are thriving.  Each year becomes a challenge to see how we can accomodate the growth of the school, and this year is no exception.
• Attendance: The number of people present in worship in all services at all campuses is another strong indicator as to the health and momentum of a congregation.  We have a record attendance at Calvary this year – just barely averaging less than 1000 for the year.

We are experiencing record worship attendance this year!

“Vision Meetings” To Be Continued…Next Post:  “What’s Challenging Us?”

My Experience at the “Prayer Experience”

Calvary is hosting a 7 Day Prayer Experience right now.  The Worship Center has been transformed into about 10 different “Prayer Stations,” and is open for 24 hour a day prayer.  Anyone is welcome – I encourage you to stop by if you are in the Winchester area. 

I slipped into “The Prayer Experience” about 2:45 AM Monday morning.  My sleeping schedule was all messed up due to having slept from Noon on Saturday to Noon on Sunday while overcoming a nasty stomach bug, so this was actually perfect for me.

When I arrived I was greeted by one of our Elders – Kenneth Williamson.  He was serving as “Host” for the evening.  We have a number of volunteers who are taking turns “hosting” the event.

I was greeted by a hand washing station outside the main door to the Worship Center.  A sign encouraged me to wash my hands – symbolically preparing myself by purging the “junk” off my life.  I appreciated this.  The previous 36 hours had been CRAZY in my family – and I needed this reminder.

Once inside I was greeted by a dimly lit room, and soft Christian music playing.  There was already one person in the room praying.  Everywhere I looked there were interesting artistic displays encouraging me to interact and pray.  I was drawn immediately to a very large screen hanging from the ceiling in the back of the room.  On it was a google earth presentation (made by Joe Brewer).  The video was 9 minutes long – and highlighted the missions that Calvary supports, both local and foreign.  It was very impacting to see the camera zoom from our Campus at Redwing Drive to the homes of Rapha, New Beginnings, the Homeless Coalition, and Community Services – all local missions we support.  But then it zoomed way out and panned across the country to a Children’s Home out west and to the Bowery Mission in New York City.  Then it zoomed way out to show the entire globe as it traveled to various destinations – Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, England, Kenya, India, West Africa.  WOW!  It was really something to see the reach of this church represented in such a visual way!  Then there was a display on the back wall that encouraged me to write a prayer for any or all of these missions and leave it on the wall.    WHAT A WAY TO START!*

Next I went to a station called “The Back Alley.”  A sign said that the alley represented the sin and ugliness that we so often hide in life.  I experienced a real life lesson there – a part of the display that I almost completely missed even though it was right there under my feet.  God seemed to say to me – “you often miss this in real life too.”  (You need to go to find out – I don’t want to ruin it.  God may have the same lesson in store for you.)

Then there was the Cairn display, the Living Room, The Communion Table, the 4 or 5 art Displays that encouraged me to write my reactions, The Detention Center, and the Prayer Closet.  Ah the Prayer Closet.

Literally, a free standing closet in the middle of the room.  On it were written the prayers of people who had already been there before me.  Prayers were written on the outside, on the door, and even on the inside walls.  I LOVED this station.  There were prayers for “my dad to stop drinking.”  A prayer asking God “why my mom left.”  And among many others, prayers for one of our Calvary families who will be heading to China to pick up their adopted daughter this week!  It was powerful.  I found an inconspicious spot and wrote my own brutally honest prayer to God.

There was more – but I think I’ve shared enough.  By the time I had gone through all of it I had been there for almost 90 minutes.  I seriously doubt that anyone can go thru the whole thing in the 30 minute time slot we allotted.

I left quieted.

Contented.

Filled.

But not satisfied.  I plan to go back a few more times this week.

I hope to see you there.

We have encouraged people to go to www.serveky.net to sign up for a 30 minute time slot, and we’d love it if you’d do that.  But you don’t have to.  You can also just show up – anytime between now and Sunday morning at 7am.

The door will be open!

*We had originally hoped that this video would contain missions that other churches in Winchester are involved with around the world – not just Calvary.  We thought it would be incredible to see the reach of the Body of Christ in Winchester to the very ends of the earth.  Unfortunately, we only gave churches about a week to respond, and the only one we got was a Jamaican Mission support by the United Methodist Church – so it was the only other mission on the video.

Passion

The Lord has directed my thoughts to the issue of passion this afternoon.  The dictionary defines passion as: “A strong and barely controllable emotion.”

Passion is displayed all around me:

• Some are passionate about their favorite sports team.
• Some are passionate about video games.
• Some are passionate about a boy/girl.
• Some are passionate about money.
• Some are passionate about their appearance.

What are you passionate about?

More importantly – the question I am asking myself this afternoon – what am I passionate about?

The right answer, of course, is Jesus.  Most of us reading this know that.  But a sober self assessment reveals some glaring inconsistencies in my life.  The way I am spending my time, and the things that have been consuming my thoughts indicate that my passion for Jesus has ebbed.

Of course I love Him!  He created me.  He redeemed me.  He fills me.  He owns me.

But my thoughts have been more for myself lately.

I read a quote on Facebook recently – I can’t recall it exactly – nor do I know who to credit it to, but the gist of it was this:  “You and I are typically the last ones to notice our own self absorption.”

Here is my earnest, desperate prayer today.  If it connects for you, I hope you’ll make it your prayer as well:

Dear Lord, I suddenly realized just an hour ago that I’m not as passionate for you and about you as I once was (as I want to be).  I don’t know what happened.  The stresses and concerns of life maybe?  I’m not sure.  It doesn’t really even matter.  Father, please forgive me.  Please renew a right spirit within me.  I want to burn brightly for you.  I want to live rightly and walk justly.  I desire that my life, my attitude, and my very person would draw attention to you and you alone.  I know that nothing else matters in my life but Jesus and Him crucified.  Please give me the strength, clarity, and energy to live that way every moment of every day.  Increase my hunger for you.  Increase my desire for you.  I pray that my life, my thoughts, my attitude, and my very personhood would draw attention to you and you alone.  I love you Lord.  Amen.

UK Fans

Recent Developments

My pace has been pretty fast the last few weeks, so I’ve been awol from the blog since mid September.  I know you’ve all been dying with anticipation – so here’s a quick rundown of the past month:

• Weekend of September 24th — I travelled back to my hometown in Campbellsburg, IN to reconnect with old High School classmates for my 20th High School Reunion.  It was great fun to see old friends.  I missed that Sunday at Calvary, but we were blessed to have Phil Ling preach for us on Sunday morning.
• Sunday, the 25th – 28th — I remained in Louisville, KY as a presenter for something called “The Equipping Institute” during the 3rd Annual “National LifeServe Conference.”  This conference is put on every year by Group Publishing, out of Loveland, CO.  I’ve been a presenter off and on for various ministry events for Group Publishing since the fall of 2005.  Group has asked me to add a few more events to my calendar in 2012, and I look forward to doing so.  I am blessed to have this opportunity, humbled by it, and thankful to be allowed this creative outlet to share with other churches around the country.
• October 2nd – 5th – Nealy and the kids were on Fall Break.  (Yes, I know the public school didn’t have a fall break this year – but we kept it in the schedule at Calvary Christian School).  Nealy took advantage of a few days off to pamper herself.  I came home on Thursday – she left on Saturday for Florida.  Being home for 5 days with the kids – without mom – really knocked me out of rythm, but in a good way.  I had to gravitate toward “Dad” roles instead of “Pastor” roles for those 5 days, and i found myself realizing that in a typical week (when I’m counting on Nealy to pick up the parenting slack) I miss out on a lot of cool moments with the kids.  My favorite moment was a simple one with my Brayden (5 years old).  I was making myself some toast, and he wanted one.  I had some homemade strawberry preserves made by our good friend Donna Cantrell from our first ministry (First Christian Church; Etowah, TN).  I was putting the preserves on my toast, and asked Bray if he wanted some.  He said “No way Dad, GROSS!”  In true Dad fashion, I forced him to try some on his toast anyway.  He took a bite, his eyes got big, and he said, “Man Dad!  You really know what you’re talking about!”  Priceless!  That’s a moment I probably would have missed in a typical week.  I’m working on that.
• Weekend of October 7, 8, & 9 — We took a team of people up to spend the weekend at our Clear Fork Campus.  We camped out (my whole family went – it was an unforgettable weekend for our family), and worked in the community all weekend.  We had campfire sings, roasted hot dogs, ate homemade food, fixed up the church building, did some work for a local family, held a “free” yard sale, and had two worship services.  Nearly 75 different people from Winchester went up for at least part of the weekend.  It was fantastic.  This represented the first Sunday that the sermon was “LIVE” and in person at the Clear Fork Campus on Sunday morning while on Video back in Winchester.  Thanks to all for embracing the switch for one weekend.
• The Week of October 10th — My last post stressed how close we are to having a community Teen Center, and yet how far we have to go.  This has been an issue of prayer, meetings, conversations, and no small amount of stress over the past months.  We are into the project too far to stop, but still have a very long way to go financially.  The Cairn Project is far more expensive than we originally estimated.  There’s just no way to sugar coat that.  We’ve needed God to move – and move in a BIG way.  Last week HE did!  It is not official yet, and so I can’t announce it.  I don’t want to mess it up.  We all need to keep praying – keep giving.  But if the development goes thru – and it moved ahead even further today.  If this continues forward, We will have the Cairn (Coffee House on the 1st Floor, Teen Center on the 2nd Floor) open as fast as the contractors can get it done.  Perhaps sometime in January!
• Saturday, October 15th — This was a BIG day for Calvary Christian School.  The school hosted its’ annual “Fall Festival” event, but with BIG changes this year.  We held it outside, and on the church property on Boonesboro Road.  There was a HUGE crowd, I have no idea at all how many.  It was a great day, lots of fun.  The school raised approximately $20,000 for itself, and designated approximately $2,000 that will go to charities that the students from each classroom selected.  To give you an idea, this is about double what usually happens.  My “smokin’ hot wife” Nealy was one of the organizers of the event.  So, as proud of their efforts as I am, I am GLAD it’s over!
• Today:  We took some baby steps forward technology wise for both the church and school.  We launched a website today at www.serveky.net.  On this new site we are hosting a volunteer sign-up software that makes it easier to volunteer for events and ministries online.  We are using it right now to recruit Jesus Prom volunteers.  We put it on a neutral website because we actually want to offer it to every non-profit, church, school, agency, etc. in Clark County & Eastern KY.  The site is set up in such a way that multiple organizations and churches can use it.  Pray for this – and talk it up.  We are hoping that this eventually becomes a central place to facilitate and communciation volunteerism in our community.  Likewise, today during parent teacher conferences, the school gave parents login access to their new online grading program called “Grade Link.”  Parents will now have access to their child’s grades at any time and can do all kinds of cool things to manage their kids accounts.

Ok – there you go.  I’m all caught up now.  If you are reading this, live near Clark County, KY, and don’t already attend another church – I hope to see you at Calvary this Sunday.  During the sermon on Sunday I will be taking a few minutes to interview a young man who, as a child, was sponsored thru Compassion International.  Come hear how $38/month forever transformed his life!

We are “This Close” to Having a Community Teen Center in Clark County

We are “THIS CLOSE!”

Calvary Christian Church has been laboring for nearly two years to establish “The Cairn,” a teen center and coffee house in downtown Winchester.

We have the building.  It is a beautiful 3-story building located at 17 South Main Street.  The facility offers over 9,000 square feet of space – and is located across the street from the County Courthouse.  Being on Main Street, it sits in the middle of our county.  It is accessible to all.

We have the plans.  Plans call for renovating the first two floors, and later expanding to the third.  The first floor will be a full service coffee house.  It will be open to the public, providing a unique relational environment.  The coffee house will open debt free, with very low overhead – and thus it is our intent that it will serve as a revenue generating engine for the building.  The 2nd floor will be a 3000 square foot space, completely customized for teens.  It will have areas for gaming; homework; a concession stand; a music venue; volunteer mentors; counselors; tutors; enrichment programs; Concerts; fun events & activies and more!

Construction is underway.  “Rainbow Enterprises,” owned by James Rison is serving as our general contractor.  James, a member of Trinity Church of God, has been very good to us – striving to help us build a top quality space for the best possible price.  He says that he sees this as “Kingdom work.”  “CKM & Associates,” a local painting company owned by David Wiestroffer has donated all of the painting in the building free of charge.  Even with the generosity of these men and others like them – we have already spent well over $100,000 – with much more to go.

We need your help.  This is a worthwhile and important project.  The youth of our community need this space.  It will add value for everyone in Clark County – but especially for our teens and those who love them.

For many of todays teenagers, their stories are truly heartbreaking.  Many of our kids come from troubled backgrounds.  Decades of drug abuse and eroding family values have taken a toll on families – and todays teenagers are often the ones paying the highest price.  Many of our kids have stories of anger, despair, violence and hopelessness.  Their stories are often fueled by abuse, depression, drugs, and abandonment.  No support.  No encouragement.  No parental guidance.  No love.

Of course, this doesn’t tell the story of ALL of our teenagers.  Many of the kids in our community have Mom’s & Dad’s who are involved in their lives.  They appear to be succeeding in school.  They are involved in activities that they seem to enjoy.  They have friends.  But living through your teen years is STILL hard, no matter how many positive things you have going for you.  Even our healthiest teenagers struggle with body image, identity, self worth, and finding meaning and purpose in their lives.

We believe that the kids need a safe place that they can call their own.  They need a place where Christ’s love can be shared with them through creative programs and mentoring relationships.  They need help finding their passions and unlocking their dreams.  They need trusted guides who can help them make better choices.  They need a place where they can be comfortable – and where they will be wrapped in love.

But here’s the deal — this dream is BIG!  Many people have contributed to this project and continue to do so.  But this is bigger than any one church.  This is for ALL of Clark County.  We are not borrowing the funds for this project – we are doing it as the money comes in.  Please pray for this project.  And if you can – contribute toward it.  If you know of someone who you think might want to be a part of it — please make them aware of it.

My heart is stirred – and I know God wants this to happen – but we’re going to have to come together as a community to see it done.

To read more info about “The Cairn,” Please follow this link to a pdf document:  “FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS.”

In This World You Will Have Trouble

I’ve been burdened for several weeks regarding some circumstances going on around me.  Some of them are personal, some are situations in people’s lives, and some of them have to do with things affecting Calvary in general.  One of the roles of a Pastor is to sit with people in their very hardest moments…and listen.  So today – whoever you are – you are going to play that role.

• I know of far too many marriages that are on the brink of destruction.  I could easily list off a dozen marriages right now that are presently going thru divorce, in the process of filing, or that it is imminent.  Obviously I can’t list them here – but trust me – Satan is having a field day with our families.  In this world you will have trouble…
• I know of a dozen more marriages that aren’t headed for divorce – yet.  But they are miserable.  They’ve just lowered their expectations and accepted that this is the best they can hope for.  In this world you will have trouble…
• I spoke to a man last week who had just come to a Wednesday evening Bible Study.  He was optimistic, because he was celebrating 3 days of sobriety.  In this world you will have trouble…
• The Cairn, our downtown project to build a community teen center and a coffee house is nearly shutdown right now.  This week they were performing asbestos mitigation, so there was a little work going on – but for the most part the whole thing is stalled.  Why?  A lack of funds.  The money is coming in on a weekly basis, but we took the position up front that we would not borrow funds…that we would do the work as the money became available.  We have run into a number of unanticipated building code issues on the building and costs are more than we initially planned.  So – we have to wait for the funds to accumulate to do some of the higher cost items that we are requried to do (like install a fire sprinkler in the entire building).  As a leader, I am very concerned that interest in the project is going to die off as it drags on and on and on.  This teen center has been something that the community has identified as a need for years.  But we can’t finish it yet.  In this world you will have trouble…
• The little boy that I was mentoring thru “Amachi” has moved away.  His family wanted to escape some problems that they had here – so they just took off.  I didn’t get to tell him goodbye, and they are not ansering their phones.  His family life is a mess.  In this world you will have trouble…
• My little brother is a mess.  He is unhappy.  He is facing criminal charges for something in his life.  I wonder if he’ll ever figure anything out.  In this world you will have trouble…
• I’ve been growing increasingly concerned about the church general finances lately.  We reached a bit with our budget this year, adding an outreach ministry position to enable us to do more for those struggling with addiction.  Our giving was slow thru the summer.  Our minsitry budgets are pretty slender to begin with, but we have managed to reduce expenses so that we have only spent 97% of what was budgeted up to this point.  Problem is, we’ve only seen 94% of what we projected in income.  That means – if you are keeping score – that we are short 3% so far this year.  I know that doesn’t seem like a lot — but in a Million dollar budget 3% is a chunk.  In this world you will have trouble…
• On Wednesday, a young lady — the daughter of a dear friend and church member – had a horrible car accident.  She was thrown from the car and suffered a broken back.  She has a 5 year old son.  I spent 7 hours at the hospital on Wednesday night, and the little boy stayed with us for about 36 hours.  He still has his mom, and she is actually doing as well as could possibly be expected up to this point.  But, it is still unclear just how life changing of an event this was.  In this world you will have trouble…

Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble.”

But thankfully, He didn’t stop talking.  For He went on to say…”But take Heart!  For I have overcome the world!”

I’m trusting in His promises today.  This world is broken, and twisted, and messed up.  In this world I should expect to be let down, disappointed, challenged, hurt, and to face many hardships.  But I will not loose heart – for to know Jesus Christ as my savior is to know that I can find peace in the midst of every adversity.  Whatever I need, Jesus has it.  Whatever I’m challenged by, Jesus and I TOGETHER can overcome it.