.Real.Greg.Lee.

I love living right outside of Chicago…What more could you want in a city?  It’s as cosmopolitan as any city in the world but retains the down-to-earth feel that comes form being in the heartland of America.

Jenny’s sister is in town so we headed downtown for one last time for the summer this evening.  There are some museums and attractions that have become regular stops for us, but there are other things we realize we have never done.  This evening was one of those times…

We took in Navy Pier, including our first-ever ride on the Ferris Wheel.  At $24 to just park your car I don’t think it will become a regular stop for us, but the Ferris Wheel was worth a ride to say you have done it…and who can beat a couple of smiles like this on the ride?

Posted in Suncrest

We put Jack on the bus this morning along with some great friends from the neighborhood for their first day of Kindergarten.  It was cool.

I don’t want to get too reflective here, but I know this is the beginning of a long social and educational journey.  Like I said in my email to Suncrest today:  It just becomes one of those markers in life that reminds you that development and progression are values that God built into this world.  While staying the same can feel safe…it never takes you anywhere. 

We are excited about his new school — Timothy Ball in Crown Point.  Last night we were at the open house and I got to meet his teacher and the principal, who both seemed great and there was a positive vibe all-around.  Also yesterday, I rode the bus with him on an orientation ride.  As it turns out, all 4 moms from our neighborhood were working so it was 3 of us dads and a grandpa on the ride!

I can’t wait to talk to him about how it went…

Posted in Suncrest

I’m in a teaching series here at Suncrest where we are taking a candid look at Sexuality.  My personal opinion…weeks 1 and 3 are great and fun to teach, but week #2 is hard to teach and listen to – The Perversion of Sex.

In the message I talk about the sexual temptations we all face and the God-given wisdom to not even mess with them..

1.  To run from them in the opposite direction.

2.  To set boundaries that will keep you from the edge of temptations.

And let’s be honest…one of the huge temptations for where sexuality goes wrong in today’s world is online pornography.  The stats would seem shocking…until you acknowledge that you yourself have probably been tempted with this…and (statistically) most of you reading this have given in to the temptation somewhere along the line.

So…if you have any wisdom and humility at all…sign up for this tool right now:  www.x3watch.com

I use it.  Every guy on our staff uses it.  It should be on every computer in your house — especially any that have children/teens using them.  There are other tools and I’m sure they are fine, but this one is RELATIONAL and RESPONSIBLE. 

Simple explanation: it sends an email to someone you trust every 2 weeks that lets them know of any sexually questionable websites you visited or if you turned off the monitoring device.  That’s it.  And that’s enough.  Pick someone you trust — someone from your community group, a family member, maybe even your spouse — and then surf the web anywhere you would not be embarrassed for them to know about.

It seriously takes less than five minutes.  Don’t click off this message until you have clicked here to get started: http://www.x3watch.com/

Posted in Suncrest

Later this week I am quite sure I’ll post on Jack’s first day of Kindergarten (Thursday!).  It will be a fun transition for him and for us!

But as I was thinking about it today, it just struck me again how critical educators are to our children and our communities.  And…I’m always amazed at how many educators we have at Suncrest — mostly teachers, but also administrators, aides, coaches, professors, and more.

I won’t pretend to be unbiased.  My wife taught in public elementary schools for 5 years before we had children and I saw first-hand the burden good teachers carry…and the difference they can make.

The Burdens?

• An amazing amount of prep from day to day.
• Balancing the demands of expectations…from children, parents, administration…while often the highest expectations are self-imposed.
• Remembering among all the details and frustrations that their calling is to help children learn…providing them a primary need for success in life.
• A willingness to try new things, go the extra mile, and love those that are hard to love.
• The inability to “turn it off”.  There is no clock to punch that lets them truly disengage from worrying about the child falling behind, or figuring out how to encourage students with great potential to stretch themselves.
• The challenge of measuring true success.  Test scores never tell the whole story and rarely do seeds planted show immediate fruit.  This remains nebulous for many outside of some much appreciated words of appreciation and notes received…sometime years later.

So my prayers today are for all of you who are educators as you head back to school.  You have a significant calling simply by your position.  And it could be a sacred calling with the right motives and determination.  In your own way, God can use you to shape and change young lives. 

I pray for these things today…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control…that in this school year you will experience the fruit of God’s spirit working in you and through you. (Galatians 5:22-23)

Posted in Suncrest

One of these days I’ll actually count how many weddings I’ve performed.  For years now, I’ve just been saying “more than 100”  It’s probably closer to 200 now.  Each one is unique…but some are more unique than others.

I’ve done weddings from Prince Edward Island, Canada to Disney World in Florida; just this summer, I’ve done them in Indy, St. Louis, Muncie, and multiple sites around the region.  I’ve done them in homes, backyards, in churches, at parks, at Country Clubs, and in more gazebos than I could count.  I’ve shared the ceremony with another pastor once or twice along the way also.

But my experience Saturday was truly special.  I had never done a wedding in Michigan City.  I had never done a wedding on a beach (you wouldn’t find me complaining if “shorts and a Hawaiian shirt” was the preferred dress for all ceremonies!).  And I had definitely never done a wedding with THREE other pastors.

So yesterday, Matt and Lindsay took their vows with their 2 youth pastors (actually responsible for setting them up), Matt’s dad (our former Executive Pastor Mike Moseng) and myself presiding.  Surprisingly, even with all four pastors talking we still kept the ceremony to a reasonable length!

Beautiful Evening.  Faith-filled Couple.  God is good.

Posted in Suncrest

I saw some suncrest friends at our softball game last night and the kids told me they were having a lemonade stand today to raise money to bring clean water to African villages through our partner ministry in Liberia.

I wasn’t surprised.  There are children all over our church doing the same thing.  Here is one story a mom sent me last week after one of our children’s ministry events featured this opportunity: 

Last night my boys, Brendan and Jacob, attended World Changers and brought their friends Joey and Tommy.  By the end of the night, they were so inspired that they decided to have a lemonade sale as the Walker sisters (another suncrest family) did to raise money for the water filtration systems. 

So today in the hot sun and humidity, they worked for 2 hours selling lemonade to passers-by.  They were awesome. Not only did they have a blast, but also they raised $16. 53.  They were happy to exceed their goal of $5:).

The pictures are from their sale…I love the way our whole church is embracing the need in Liberia!

Posted in Suncrest

I’ve lived in the suburbs for 13 years now, but I grew up in the country and in the country the county fair was a big deal.  Ours (in Adams County, Illinois) was not only a place to watch the demolition derby and enjoy some cotton candy, it was a stop for rising country artists early in their careers…people like the Garth Brooks of the world (though as much as still love the country…I never did like Country Music).

So our family enjoyed going to the Lake County fair last night.  I always think it is an interesting mix of the country and the city.  Our kids had a blast walking through the animal barns and even getting a ride on some real ponies.  They did some games and rides and had the chance to watch part of the horse show in the arena.

We sat down to eat an elephant ear as a family during the horse show and this was a new experience for the kids.  Apparently I had played up the “elephant ear” concept a little too literally because as we were eating it, Jack looked at his mom and asked about a small hole in the middle of the huge piece of dough…saying, “Is that where they drained the blood out?”

That’s my son!

Posted in Suncrest

I can’t believe I didn’t get around to posting on this earlier because I had rich experience attending the Leadership Summit this year.  It is great every year as Willow Creek Community Church brings in the top-level thinkers about Leadership — and not just church leadership.  In addition to pastors, this year’s line-up had key leadership voices from the business sector, the social sector, academia, the arts, and more.

I might get around to my summary someday soon, but a lot of others have posted the very best quotes and concepts from the talks, so I’m going to link to the best of the best right here…just click on the person’s name to go to their reflections.  I promise they are worth it!

Bob Bouwer – Pastor of Faith Church in Dyer

Kem Meyer – Communications Director at Granger Community Church near South Bend

Tony Morgan – Author of Killing Cockroaches and other scattered musings on leadership

Dave Ferguson – Pastor of Community Christian Church in Naperville – Dave gives more summary than just quotes, but you’ll have to click through to see each session.

I love leadership.  For good or bad, Godly or ungodly, it changes the world.  These resources can help you and I make this world a better place.

Posted in Suncrest

Doing this little reflection on the new churches we have started has been good for me (I hope it has been for you too).  In the midst of everything else that Suncrest does, it was personally inspiring to see the work God is doing through our church that isn’t in front of us every day. 

Today, I led meetings for our church plant in Boston, Reunion Christian Church.  I could write a million things, but this church isn’t even 4 years old and it is searching the options to deal with overcrowding in their two services.  Realistically, they will be seeing 400 in attendance this fall.  The conversation centered around starting a 3rd service and launch a 2nd campus.  Whatever it is, the church is committed to keep changing the spiritual landscape of Boston.

The last church I’ll highlight for now is Common Ground Church in Tampa, FL.  I haven’t personally been to this church, but their Lead Pastor Danny Schaffner has taught twice at Suncrest and we have sent teams down there.  Here is what he he wrote…

Common Ground tackled it’s most aggressive outreach week on July 26th – Aug. 1. RoK Week, aka Revolution of Kindness week, was a series of benevolent acts to our community. 3 mini-festivals in our local parks, 2 sports and arts camps, 1 backyard vbs, and a healthfair/ backpack giveaway. We leveraged our mission trips and resources to create one of the most incredible weeks of benevolence to our community. 

 During our backpack giveaway – we gave away over 1400 backpacks to families, teachers, and schools. Teachers would come in and grab 30-50 at a time and deliver them to needy families on behalf of Common Ground. One family in particular came to Common Ground to receive a back pack. The building was packed and we were serving people as fast as we could. A mother pulled her child aside and said “See, this is how you know Jesus is real.” 

 Awesome! That’s why we do what we do – so people can see the reality we know as Jesus!

…Just one more reason that I love new churches.

Posted in Suncrest

I’ve been posting stories from the new churches we have launched of suncrest’s history.  And I’m typing this tonight from New England because tomorrow I have a meeting here with our Boston church plant — Reunion Christian Church — the one I’ve probably talked about on here more than any others. (The picture is of the actual room they meet in for worship at the Back Bay Boston Hilton, though it obviously configured a bit differently!)

One of the things that has struck me as I have typed is that I know these stories better than anyone…but still when I start to tell them I’m amazed at how our investments in these new churches go far beyond just writing a check to help them financially.  These are real partnerships.  I already mentioned former staff members and former interns at some of our plants and then I got this email from Nathan McConnaughhay. You might remember Nathan interned with us over the last year and then we ordained him.  And (surprise, surprise) he went from Suncrest to help launch a new campus of a new church called Lifepointe!

Yes, we are supporting him too and it’s cool to see the difference it is making for him.  Here it is, in his own words…

             Hey! I hope all is well.  I just wanted to pass this bit of fact on to you all and pass on to whoever you will. 
I’m getting into my new apartment which is just a crazy awesome God story.  He just put the opportunity in front of me and now I am living in an artistic part of town above a coffee shop that is located in an old historical house.  I’m going to be posting a video tour of my new place soon so you can all see it.  But I thought it’d be a fun fact for you to know that Suncrest’s monthly support ensures that I have enough for rent AND utilities for my place!  It was such a great deal; it’s cheaper than any normal apartment I would get, even splitting with a roommate.  So it’s all been working out really well and God’s just been blessing my socks off at every turn.  And you all are definitely a part of that blessing and Suncrests’ involvement in my ministry is very, very tangible. 

Thanks, once again, for all you have done for me and your continued support!

We love Nathan and we love new churches.  I really love it that Suncrest makes it possible to connect a dynamic young leader with a dynamic ministry opportunity.  God is good.

Posted in Suncrest