.Real.Greg.Lee.

I have to credit my friend Dave Ferguson for this one.  He’s a white sox fan who posted it on his blog.  As soon as I saw it, I knew it was something to be shared!  🙂

Click here for the 1 minute video.

Posted in Suncrest

For me, there’s nothing like being at Suncrest on a Sunday morning.  But today I had the privilege of teaching at Faith Church as part of our ONE PRAYER series that we are doing with them and a couple thousand other churches around the world.

Faith’s Pastor Bob Bouwer and I had were both super excited about teaching at each other’s church.  We actually got to see each other briefly at the end of the morning and all I can say is this:  if our churches had half as good of an experience as each of us had, I’m confident we can call it a success.

Here’s a few reflections on my experience at Faith Church this weekend…

-Great hospitality…their staff and volunteers went out of their way to serve me.  I sent a text to Bob after Saturday night’s service letting him know they shined.

-Commitment to excellence (you all know I love this).  This church doesn’t do things half-way.  EVERYTHING was well done.

-I was able to confirm that my cubs/cardinals jokes work everywhere, not just suncrest. 🙂

-Fascinated by their concept of “The Well”…an informal place people gather to worship with a live feed from the main worship area.

-It was great to run into some people I have connections with.  I must have had 30 people tell me “My friend/sister/neighbor/son goes to Suncrest.”  On top of that I talked to a lady who used to cut my hair, a lady on Jenny’s soccer team, and more.

-A true radius….let me explain.  I’ve been in Northwest Indiana for 13 years and every church I have known in the area hits an invisible barrier…the state line.  When we were meeting at Lake Central High School, we would have dozens of families from from Crown Point, Lowell, Merrillville, Griffith, all the way up to Whiting which were 10-15 miles away, but very, very few from Illinois, though it was only a few miles away.  My research was hardly scientific, but from so many conversations today my sense is that Faith Church has quite clearly broken through that barrier.

-Faith Church is a great church…and more importantly a Godly church.  Jesus prayed that his followers would be ONE so that we could change the world.  Can’t think of another church I’m more excited about sharing that mission with.  Thanks for a great day, Faith Church.

Posted in Suncrest

I’ve missed blogging the last couple days while I was out of town. I took the whole family for a wedding I was performing for Laura VanWeelden — their family attended suncrest before moving to Arizona a few years ago.

It was at a beautiful facility called “The Scottish Rite Cathedral”.  Breath-taking. 

-We stayed downtown and the kids loved walking to the memorial on “The Circle”.  The waterfalls were their favorite.

– Our room was on the 15th floor and the swimming pool was on the 19th floor.  The kids got to swim while I was performing the ceremony. They loved it!

-Earlier on Friday, our whole family spent much of the day at the Indy Children’s Museum.  Parts of it were closed, but we still didn’t get through the whole thing.  Great place!  (Jack is pictured digging for dinosaur bones).

-While we were walking to the rehearsal dinner at the Weber Grill Restaurant, the skies opened and absolutely let loose and we got drenched!  Abby got a little scared of the “Funder”

-We walked a couple blocks to Dunkin Donuts Friday morning and guess who we saw as we were walking in?  Megan Stas from suncrest.  I did her wedding a couple years ago and she now lives and works in Indy.  Wild.

Just got back form teaching at Faith church tonight.  Great experience.  I’ll write more about that tomorrow.

Posted in Suncrest

I spent about 4 hours tonight working through ideas for what we will teach on in the coming year at Suncrest.  This meeting is probably step 4 of a 6 step process.  Other steps have included getting ideas form other churches and from suncrest people and others on this blog.

In the meeting, I invited all 5 of us who teach on Sundays at Suncrest (me, Doug, Beka, Bobby, Jared), but this year we added some others who don’t live in church world.  It was amazingly helpful.  Here are some random thoughts coming out of the gathering…

-Most of us in church-world work hard at figuring out the issues of everyday people…but we still over-estimate our ability to do it.  I was especially thankful for Nathan, Gordon, Erin, and Cindy tonight!

-There are lots of good ideas to be explored, but a 30 minute sermon isn’t the best mode for exploring some of them.

-There are lots of good ideas that are better explored in a setting that had discussion, not just monologue…unless we can somehow create dialog more often????

– There is interest in the mysterious…especially spiritual realm and the Holy Spirit.

-Something about pain and suffering could come up every 6 months in the teaching cycle…and not be too much.

-It’s an overwhelming positive for the teacher/pastor to acknowledge he doesn’t understand everything from time to time.  (I know authenticity is powerful, but also feel that pressure to have a concrete answers for people).

-Trying to figure out how to help people to read the Bible for themsleves.  Can that be done on Sunday mornings?  How?

-Is there a verse in Bible somewhere that requires all churches to do a Christmas teaching series every year?  If we canned it this year, would people hate me?

I have pages of notes from tonight.  Hope to have it turn into a 12 month teaching plan over the next few weeks.

Posted in Suncrest

I can’t get Sunday out of my head.  (Maybe it is because I’m going to replay it this Sunday at Faith Church?)  I started by talking about how there is nothing more motivating to me than changed lives.

I love dramatic changes and I love people who just take those first baby steps…It doesn’t matter.  I just fundamentally believe that God’s plan for you is NOT to stay the same.

So I got more good news today.  On Sunday we had 13 people respond to the invitation to follow Christ and we believe 11 of those were for the very first time.  Incredible.  I emailed the elders and staff and I think Sue’s reply said it all.  It was simply “YES!!!!”

Then today I also read what Nathan McConnaughhay wrote on his blog about our elders ordaining him in to ministry.  He says some kind things about our church…and I’m just thankful that his life was shaped in new ways here.  You can read his whole post here.

I love when our mission is fulfilled and lives are changed.  And I’m driven to keep leading toward that.  I don’t think I’ve ever been addicted to anything, but maybe these are the feelings it generates???

Posted in Suncrest

I think God’s grace is the most powerful concept and force I’ve ever understood or encountered.

Like I said yesterday at west campus, it has the power to change your life and it gives you the power to keep changing.  Out of all the things available to talk about with the topic of “God is…_________”, “grace-filled” was the easy choice for me.

One neat thing…I invite people all the time to suncrest, but I invited a a few people specifically for this message this past weekend.  One sent me an email last night and said… “it was a wonderful message and you were right it was good for me to hear today. ”

I love changed lives.

Posted in Suncrest

At this time every Sunday I’m in my routine.  Here’s what happens pretty much every week:

-Feeling tired…because I stayed up too late with the sermon.

-Getting nervous…about teaching.  After 13 years, still happens every Sunday.

-Posting…the Big Idea of my sermon on twitter/facebook.

-Reading the paper…online, might try to fit something in the message from it.

-Praying…especially for East Campus as they start setting up at the theater soon.

-Praying…for other pastors and churches around the country (and world).  See what many of them are doing on twitter.

-Drinking…the biggest Vanilla Iced Coffee I can order

-Working through…the message.  Changing things.

-Meeting…with mediashout/powerpoint people at 6:50 and sound check at 7:35 before first service at 8:00.

-Thanking God…that I get the chance to teach his word every Sunday to so many people with open hearts.

Posted in Suncrest

I can’t wait for the next few weeks.  Starting this Sunday at West campus and next Sunday at east campus we launch ONE PRAYER.  This will be kind of long so just feel free to read the sections below you are interested in:

The Background

ONE PRAYER is a worldwide movement of churches.  This year over 1600 churches with almost a million people will be doing this message series all at the same time.  The name ONE PRAYER represents Jesus prayer right before he went to the cross, asking the father that ALL Christians be unified so the Grace of God could be spread.  This year, we are focusing on core qualities of God.  Most churches participating have their lead pastor speak the first week and then use video of other participating pastors on the other weeks, but we have a unique arrangement for that…

Working with Faith Church

While we have our uniqueness, Suncrest and Faith Church in Dyer share a heart for reaching our region and working together.  Faith Church is doing the ONE PRAYER series also and during week 2, I’ll go share my message there and Bob Bouwer (Faith’s pastor) will come here to share his.  On the third week, both of our churches will use video teaching for the father’s day weekend from one of the best communicators in the country.  We have some cool stuff planned…

A Regional Cause

Think about this.  Suncrest has locations in St. John and Merrillville/Hobart.  Faith Church has locations in Dyer, Cedar Lake and soon will have one in Valpo.  One the first Sunday, both churches are going to give cool bracelets to everyone to wear for the month.  When you see someone at a baseball game or the grocery store with the same bracelet, you may not know if they are from your campus, another campus of your church, or another church, but you will know we represent ONE PRAYER.

A Worldwide Cause

Part of our effort as we work with a global network of churches is to meet a global need.  Since we have become more invested in our Liberia, Africa partnership, we have arranged to have a shipping container on our west campus and fill it with supplies that will help our sister church over there and also the mission trip Suncrest will send their next February.  (Cool story…a guy in our church works for a company that ships these huge containers and he got us one for free!  Thanks, Josh!)  Below is the list of items we are collecting….which you can bring to your campus through the ONE PRAYER Series.

Suncrest, this is HUGE…and FUN.  I can’t wait to see the way God works through it.

Suggestted Items for the Shipping Container to Africa

PERSONAL NEEDS – Soap, Ziploc bags,  Shampoo, Hand sanitizer, Deodorant, Toothbrushes-adults and kids,  Toothpaste

VBS – Crayons, Copy Paper, Colored Paper, Construction Paper, Markers, Colored Yarn 

MISC. – Used School Textbooks, Bible Study Materials – Women/Men/Couples, Kids Books, Parenting Books, Balls, Dolls

MEDICAL SUPPLIES  – Tylenol, Children’s Tylenol (Advil, ibuprofen etc.),     Vitamins-adults and kids, Dollar store – eye glasses, Medical gauze, Medical gloves

Posted in Suncrest

This isn’t a thought through blog post as much as kind of sharing a “stream of consciousness”.

There is a huge conversation going on right now about the role of technology and particularly social networking (like facebook and twitter) in life, in business, and in church.  It’s fascinating for anyone who is interested in emerging trends, but personally I have noticed that some of the conversations are turning pretty negative.

Here are two articles that are TOTALLY worth reading if you have an interest (or resistance) to this at all:

MSNBC Article

Origins Blog Post

This is just my observation, but I think we need to make sure we are engaged with this more than ever to be relevant in our culture.  

Still here is the ugly side of the debate:

• I am finding more and more a pride and a snobbish vibe from those who use this technology and can’t believe “those people” who don’t get it.  It smacks of the “in” group and the “out group” on the playground or higher socio-economic classes that think less of “those people” with less.  The truth is, people legitimately have different perspectives about it…and I don’t think it is healthy to have a “If you were really cool you would twitter” perspective.  The arrogance actually repels people from it.

• There is also the other side of it…those who are decidedly against the twitter/facebook movement and almost campaign against it.  At best, they do so from a misunderstanding.  Sometimes, you get the sense they do it out of defensiveness.  At worst, they have decided the world should never change around them and they are going to take pot shots at it usually using “straw men” arguments.

If you know me, you know I love using some of these technologies and I love encouraging others to use it, but want I never want to send the message that “you are lame if you don’t”.

Your thoughts?

Posted in Suncrest

One of the things I notice about myself is that I talk a lot about my kids publicly in raving terms…but don’t as much about my wife.  Truth is, part of that is her desire to not be out in front too much (she might even kill me for writing this!)  But the truth also is that I take her for granted too much.

A family at Suncrest who means the world to us offered to take our kids from church on Sunday through Monday so Jenny and I could get away on our own.  We did that over the last two days and it was obvious all over again what a gift I have in her.

There is the obvious to anyone…she is beautiful in every way.  Her consistent sacrifice (and sometimes extreme sacrifice) is the only thing that makes it possible for me to lead people toward Christ.  Our kids are incredible…because of her. 

And there is the less obvious to those who don’t know her…her inner strength, her attention to details (someone has to!), her giving spirit to our neighbors and friends and family.

I love my kids, but I love Jenny more.  And I’m confident I’ll show this little note to my children someday when they are older and they will be glad I have chosen that distinction.

Posted in Suncrest