.Real.Greg.Lee.

Everyone knows the Mac vs. PC commercials from a few years ago.  I actually use (and like) a PC, but it didn’t matter.  It was easy to love Mac and their commercials.  The message was straightforward (and true).  PC’s are clunky to use and feel old.  Mac’s are simple to use and feel cool.  So, I put a Mac sticker on my PC…

My observation is that a new set of commercials could come out any time now with a new twist.  The slight difference being that it would be on a company level more than a product level:  Apple vs. Google

Apple is about premium pricing.  Google is about Free.

Apple is high control. Google is high collaboration.

Apple is about style.  Google is about Substance.

You might agree or want to argue.  There are similarities too…both highly value simplicity.

The news this week is that Google’s Android system has now overtaken Apple’s iPhone system in popularity among smart phone users.  Bigger news than that is the direction of trends (Android way up, iPhone steady, and Blackberry sinking fast).  It’s worth noting you can only get Apple’s system on one phone (iPhone) and currently from one provider – AT&T (high control).  Android is open to any phone manufacturer and any provider (high collaboration).

Here is my point for a techie post today.  Google is my preference, but I think people miss it when they say one is good and the other isn’t.  Obviously both companies are quite successful at what they are doing. In fact, maybe they are successful because they both know who they are and aren’t trying to be something else.

Do you?

Posted in Suncrest

We introduced two new staff members at our all-staff meeting on Tuesday.

Pilar Lis and Allie Doyle are both taking on part-time roles in our children’s ministry at our Highland and Hobart Campuses.  Everyone around here knows we just landed two incredible people!  Both of these women have had their faith take on new and powerful dimensions at Suncrest.

Pilar had been away from church a long time before she and her husband came to the Hobart Campus 2 years ago.  Allie said yesterday her defining moment was coming up to be baptized (along with her husband and 81 others!) on that cold day last February.  From there to staff member…because God writes incredible stories in our lives when we let Him use us.

It gets better….I put them on the spot for a short interview in front of the other staff and asked them random questions.  When I asked them, “Who is your favorite non-staff member at Suncrest?”  They both immediately said together “Julie Coons!”.  To our great disappointment, the Coons family relocated for a job last year, but Julie’s legacy is all over this place.

You know who inspires me?  Pilar.  Allie.  Julie.  Anyone…who lets God use them to change lives.

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Every Monday morning at about 4:00am an email lands in my Inbox from Rachel Kaser.  Rachel is not only Andy’s wife and a marathon runner who gets up WAY too early on Monday mornings, but the volunteer leader for “Cultivate” at our new Walkerton Campus.  So the early Monday email is to a Prayer Team for the new campus to start the week.

And until now, it was a small team mostly made up from people supporting the campus launch from out of town.  Since all campuses talked about the 4 C’s on Sunday (Connect.Contribute.Cultivate.Care), we asked people to take steps in at least one of the 4 areas.

This morning, I got an email, saying there are now 7 new people who call the Walkerton Campus home that are developing their prayer-life and joining the team!

Love it.  Love the stories of people taking steps with God.  Love Andy, Rachel and all the leaders at Walkerton being used by God to change lives.

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Our church started a tradition long ago of receiving an offering at our Christmas Eve Services that becomes our “Compassion Fund” for the coming year (we are changing the terminology to something more understood and descriptive than “Benevolence”).

I have always been amazed at the generosity of our church toward this…but think about this.  Not that long ago (2003) our offering was about $14,000.  We thought it was great and the needs that it met were real.  So how does it grow to where our offering was $47,000 last week?

I don’t know.  Sure…the church has grown a lot since 2003, but nothing like the growth of the offering.  I’ve thought about it a lot and have simply landed on these words of Jesus, “from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (Luke 12:48)

Responsibility to the needs of a community is something God has a huge heart for.  I’m confident he has seen how we have “managed” this responsibility and is now asking us to manage more.

Thank you for your generosity this Christmas.  Your gifts will be a tangible difference-maker in the lives of people.

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We can’t send this letter by snail mail to everyone, so here is the e-version of the 2010 Lee Family Christmas Letter.

Dear Family and Friends,

2010 was fun.  And sad.  And stretching.  And powerful.

My goal with this Christmas letter every year is actually pretty hard as Christmas letters go: Don’t fake it. Our family is extremely fortunate and we are grateful to God and many people for it.  Still, real life is challenging. Your life is a lot different than ours if you haven’t had a big challenge or two (or 10) this year. And God works through that too. Here’s our snapshot at the end of the year…

Abby is 4 and Jack is 7 now. That means pre-school and first grade. And dance class, soccer, T-ball, golf-camp, and church stuff. They both love their cats, their new fish, creating multiple forms of art and hanging out with their friends.

We think Jackson was made for school. He craves reading, but seems to love a math challenge even more. He enjoys art and music just as much as recess, where he claims, “The girls won’t leave me alone.” (Jenny chaperoned one of his field trips this fall and witnessed the other side of that story.) He decided to be a veterinarian for Halloween… because he wanted to take our cats trick-or-treating! He likes watching the news and talking about what is going on in the world, wanting to understand everything.

We think Abby was made for the stage, as long as it is in our living room. She loves to dance, sing, dress up like Cinderella, model new clothes, and has a dramatic flair… at least around those she knows well. In public, she avoids the spotlight, telling us to “be quiet” on the sidelines of her soccer games. Her emotions run close to the surface and change dramatically in a short period of time. She informed me this year, “Dad, I can get you to do anything I want.” That is mostly true.

We are thankful that our kids are blessed with incredible cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparents. The sad part of this year was saying an earthly good-bye to Jenny’s Grandma Iney, who richly blessed our lives and many others over her 91 years.

Besides teaching insurance classes, volunteering at Jack’s school, and leading the visual presentation team at church, Jenny went on another mission trip to Liberia in February. Now she is part of the team at Suncrest that is leading our effort to start new churches there.  They are making sure that any church we start will have an economic development component. It not only makes the church sustainable, but also provides innovation, development, and job opportunities in a country that remains in desperate need.

For me, it’s been a year to stretch and be stretched.  Suncrest risked a lot, launching two new campuses along with the Liberian church planting. God has blessed almost anything you can count… the most important being “How many stories are there of God reshaping lives?” I love that. I had a separate trip to Liberia and one to India that kept me away from home for about a month. That, on top of everything else, created the most demanding year I’ve ever had. I’m very thankful for the staff and leaders at our church who are all in this together (and figuring it out as we go!)

Thanks for your friendship, love, and support. Whether we see each other every day or haven’t seen each other in years, you mean a lot to us. Pray for us and we will pray for you. And this Christmas… take time to be utterly fascinated by the Christ-child. God is with us in Him.

Merry Christmas!

Greg, Jenny, Jackson, and Abby

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I just got a report from David Vineyard with a long list of places our Benevolence/Compassion Fund has been used this year in our church and in our community….thanks to everyone’s generosity last Christmas Eve.  Suncrest, you don’t need me to poke you again about being generous this year.  🙂

Let’s just do it because it is part of following Jesus.  And it REALLY makes a difference in people’s lives like these (a partial list)…

• 350 gift cards given to people in need of gas and food

• Almost 100 people helped with their rent/mortgage/utility bills

• Sponsored a Cedar Lake home in “Rebuilding Together”  doing major repairs for a single mom with a handicapped child.

• Made a major donation for Haiti earthquake relief.

Among many others, there are stories of repairing a furnace, paying for prescriptions for unemployed, helping families have reliable transportation for work, helping a single mom getting out of shelter and into a home in time for Christmas,  and helping another after a fire destroyed their home.

Thanks for being givers, Suncrest!

Posted in Suncrest

I was writing our annual Christmas letter (to be published here later this week) and trying to take an honest look at 2010.  It’s been an incredible year.  And, without question, it has been the most demanding year I’ve ever had.  We were expanding our emphasis on serving the community, launching new campuses and church planting in Liberia, but I think that was the small part of it.

I started to add up how much I’ve been gone from home and church because I think it not being physically present is single-biggest factor to take things from busy to chaotic, to challenge relational connections,  and to add stress exponentially.  The short answer is…”too much”.  The really short answer is…83.

In 2010, I spent 83 nights somewhere other than my own bed.  All of it was good stuff. There was family time… vacation, holidays, and more.  There was Suncrest stuff…a trip to Africa, meetings in Dallas, Boston, Orlando.  There were other opportunities I’ve been graciously given to teach or learn…in New Hampshire, India, and Crawfordsville.

As good as all of it was, I’m not doing that again.  (At least not until the kids are out of the house and Jenny can travel with me!)  I can’t eliminate all of it and some great family stuff is already blocked out for 2011.  Still, I’m pretty sure everyone’s life around me will be better if I step back dramatically for a year and then set a reasonable schedule moving forward.  I told a friend jokingly this morning that my goal is not to get on an airplane in 2011!  Wonder if I could pull that off?

I want this to be more than just a reflection about me, though.  I’ve thought about my travel and how I got to this point.  Can I be really candid about the answers?  I share them here hoping they could help you do a little year-end assessment too.  I think these answers apply far beyond my travel schedule.

How did I get to this point?

1.  My ego. There is still a little sizzle about how cool it is to travel a lot.  And when I’m honest, it can quickly internally twist to how cool/important I must be because of all of this.  I felt it even as I typed out all those cities and countries above.  It is not accurate…and sickening to write, but will never be overcome if it isn’t faced.

2.  Fear of missed opportunities. I remember the first time I gt asked to travel to the Philippines to teach/speak.  It was a terrible time to leave and very short notice (I was a late-substitute for the guy they really wanted to go!).  But I thought, I can’t pass this up.  I may never get the chance to do something like this again.  While there is some truth in that, I find myself justifying trips with this logic rather than choosing the best thing for my time.

3.  Others Expectations. All of us are tugged in different directions.  And I like to make people happy.  Meet their expectations.  Respond to their need.  Rescue their situation.  So I say “yes”…alot.  Then, I notice how meeting someone’s expectations costs me with the people I care the most about.  I’m starting to get this one right, but know it will be a constant battle.  I canceled 2 trips this year after they were on my calendar already…when I realized I have to prioritize what will make me the best husband, father, and pastor…not just respond to other people’s desires.

That’s it.  I hope it gives you something to think about.  Happier posts for the rest of 2010…I promise. 🙂

Posted in Suncrest

I had our founding pastor (John Wasem) at Suncrest pass this on to me.  Hopefully it doesn’t strike too close to home for you to find the humor in it!

Click below and it will open…I promise it is better than the “Jelly-of-the-Month club”.

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Before we move on to Christmas Vacation this week, I had to post these pictures from “A Christmas Story”. You recognize the first one from the movie, right?  The second one is uncanny in its resemblence…and is actually a picture of one of our new elders, Lee Anderson, siting on Santa’s lap as a child!

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My title is actually only partially accurate.  I have very little advice for how to give Christmas gifts to people you love this year.  It is basically:  Make it as meaningful and personal as possible.  And don’t give in to over-doing it.

But, I have a lot of advice for being a giver at Christmas.  Obviously it should happen all throughout the year, but lots of us give out of compassion and faith especially at this time of year to meet real needs in our community and our world.  This verse constantly rings in my head:

…and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. -Isaiah 58:10

So how do you do it?

1.  Be generous.  Stretch yourself.  Americans are the most generous people on planet earth.  Still, sometimes we satisfy our conscience that we “made a difference” by giving pretty small amounts.  Smaller than our cable bill was last month.  I’m all for dropping extra coins and bills in the red bucket and getting a $25 gift for a child in need.  Lots of us doing that together makes a real difference.  But don’t be personally satisfied with that.

2.  Seriously, be generous.  “So, how much Greg?”  I’m glad you asked.  Probably at least twice what you were originally thinking.  Maybe 10 times as much.  Or maybe even 100 times.  What does it feel like to add a few zeros?  Does it feel like it would be a huge sacrifice of yourself to help someone need?  Good.  That’s what I’m looking for.

3.  Seriously, be REALLY Generous.  One rule of thumb that has stretched me (and others I have personally challenged with it) is this: Try to give as much to meeting people’ most basic needs this Christmas as you are to buying presents for everyone on your lists — most of whom already have more than enough.  Wouldn’t that get the spirit of the season right?  A  portable DVD player for our kids (Shhhh…don’t tell them.) will add to our quality of life on long family trips.  But giving to our benevolence/compassion offering at church has a lot more to do with God’s gift to us in Jesus.  It’s challenging to get this right.

4.  Everything else…Invest in individuals and in groups that pass gifts on with low overhead costs.  Pray for God to multiply the impact of your gift.  Go serve along with giving cash (but not instead of giving cash!)  Give to something you personally care about.  For Christ-followers, I think it is important to give to focus giving to places that “give a cup of cold water in Jesus Name.”  Help your children experience all of it with you — the sacrifice and the joy.

You can probably add a lot to number 4…feel free to in the comments section if you want. But make sure you go back and read 1, 2, 3 again also.

Posted in Suncrest