.Real.Greg.Lee.

We all like people who affirm us.  But true friends push us.

Today I ran a half-marathon for the first time.  It felt good the whole way.  I was very pleased with my finishing time of 2 hours and 20 minutes for 13.1 miles.  And I never would have done it on my own.

Five of us from our community group ran the race today.  Three of us ran together from start to finish — we all had the exact same time down to the second!  It all started with Jeff Butera challenging others in our group to run after he did the Chicago marathon last year.  It ended with 5 of us embracing each other just past the finish line. 

These guys inspired me with their training and even working through injuries.  Two and a half weeks ago, 4 miles was the longest I had run.  Jeff and Donelle (his wife who ran with us) had been telling me I should run with them and I finally did 2 Saturdays ago.  We ran together for 9 miles and it was AMAZING to me how much better it was running with someone else!

I’m thankful to Donelle, Jeff Sanford, and Michael Switzer, and especially Jeff Butera.  Right up to our last mile today, he was pushing us to finish with a strong kick…and we did.  He pushed me to do something I never would have done on my own…and (I think) something I never could have done on my own.

Friends do that. 

Who does that for you? 

Who do you do that for?

Posted in Suncrest

The half-marathon I’m running is Saturday morning in Fishers.  It will be part of a full weekend because I have a rehearsal Friday night and a wedding Saturday afternoon down there too.

Just a few thoughts…

1.  I welcome your prayers.  I’m feeling decent about it, but I ALWAYS welcome prayers.

2.  I feel guilty praying for help sometimes if I haven’t done the preparation.  I’d give my preparation a C- so pray accordingly!

3.  Right now, the forecast is for storms.  Hope it doesn’t rain, but especially hope lighting doesn’t interrupt the race.  Forecasts change all time over 48 hours, right?

4.  It’s going to be so cool to do this with 4 others from our community group.  I know it’s been a great relational connect.

5.  When we did our 9 mile run a week ago, we started in Crown Point and I asked how far we would run and found out we would run to Griffith and back!  Crazy to think about, eh?  13. 1 Miles is a long way…which means the finish line will be very cool.  I hope I can stand up for the wedding in the afternoon!

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I feel like a lot of data I come across is useless, but today I was introduced to data that could change lives and ministries.  I’ve spent the day at Wabash College again with 17 other young pastoral leaders from around the state. 

This program is just knocking it out of the park with the caliber of presenters we get to hear from.  This time it includes the foremost expert on religious data in the United States — Dr. Roger Finke of Penn State University and the Honorable Juan M Solana, Consul of Mexico. 

Tomorrow’s discussion dives specifically into immigration issues Indiana is dealing with, but today we were introduced to a wealth of resources available to us to sort out specific information about our communities.  We also had a stirring discussion about how this data is processed (it’s amazing how our personal perceptions of our communities are confirmed..or debunked). 

Among the incredible resources out there:

www.thearda.com — the most comprehensive and user-friendly site I’ve ever seen.

Also recommended:

www.epodunk.com

www.pewforum.com

www.city-data.com

Some of these have a “religious” element to them, but I have to imagine they would be useful for researching almost anything related to demographics of a specific part of the USA.

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I guess it makes sense.  I taught on Gratitude yesterday morning at our west campus, and I’ve been flooded with grateful expressions.  These are so encouraging about our ministry here that I thought I should share them with the difference-makers around here  – all of you who make up this wonderful church!

A facebook message from yesterday: 

“Unexpressed gratitude communicates ingratitude”…been ringing in my head all day. It convicted me especially when it comes to you and Suncrest in general.

An email from an east campus attender (Doug posted another part on the east campus blog): 

Your series about relationships helped me to recognize what I have been doing and let me say a prayer of thanks that friendship is already on the road of recovery & I wouldn’t have recognized the issue if you hadn’t preached about it.  I also want to say how much I appreciate the Celebrate Recovery program! I went for a few weeks hoping to find some answers to helping my friend…It is a wonderful program!  Well, I know I babble on, but I want to say thank you…

From the connection card on Sunday (there were more than I could ever share): 

I want to thank you for your honesty and willingness to share.  You Rock!

Thanks for the wake-up call.

I have always been grateful for this church.

We have been looking for a church for two years. We found Suncrest, we have been coming since Nov 08 & absolutely love it here. Thanks for everyone who makes it so special.

Praise God!  Dave V., Cindy B., grateful 4 all u do 2 make Suncrest rock! God Bless U all!

Thank you for bringing hope and fulfillment into my life.

And one last one that is personal to me (and will only make sense if you have heard some of my life’s story)…

Greg, I’m so thankful you didn’t go into the fertilizer business!

Thank You, Suncrest.  For making a difference in people’s lives and modeling gratitude.

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Life is better because of the moms in our lives.  I know mine is.

First, Jenny, the mother to our children.  She is the primary influence on their lives.  She teaches them…practically, academically, spiritually.  She protects them from harmful influences.  Her love is unmistakable and consistent.  She has a compassion capacity that I do not.  Best of all, Jack and Abby adore her.

Second, my mother.  I imagine we all appreciate our parents more as we grow older.  Time and perspective does that…and I guess it has to me.  I now feel the tensions and stresses of raising young children, but it seems to me that she always handled it with grace.  There are lots of things I could mention…her unconditional love, her resolve, her servanthood on all fronts…family, school, church, cub scouts…every area of life.

Third, a family of moms.  My Grandma Lee.  My Grandma Bluhm.  My mother-in-law.  Jenny’s grandmothers.  Even as I’m typing this, I wonder how it is that God has surrounded me with such consistent, strong, and loving women.  Each has their own unique influence, but I’m struck by the power of their united influence on me and my children. 

Thanks, moms.

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April was my travel-free month in the calendar.  That’s over.

For May, I have overnight trips to Naperville, Crawfordsville, Indy, Dallas, Camp Point, IL (my hometown) and Chicago.  I think I’ll get 18 nights in my own bed this month.  Some of it is personal.  Some of it is church stuff. 

Most of them actually have a little bit of both.  Indy is a wedding and half-marathon.  On the trip to Dallas, I’m taking Abby on a free ticket I earned so she can hang out with her aunt.  Should be good one-on-one time for Jackson and Jenny while they are here.  When I’m gone this coming week, Jenny’s mom and brother are here to help.  I do try to leverage my church trips so it’s not just leaving Jenny and the kids at home.

Just looked at June…19 nights in my bed.  And July…16 nights in my bed.  Hopefully, I’m just front-loading the travel schedule so I’ll be home more in the fall when Jack starts Kindergarten.

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Ever since I unveiled that we are going to partner with Faith Church this summer on a sermon series, I keep getting reactions that are interesting to me.  Don’t get me wrong…people are loving it.  I just find some people are surprised because they have assumed churches “compete” with each other.

That is actually one of the things I love about most all of the churches in our region.  There is a “we’re better together” mentality.  Yesterday we came together with other churches for the National Day of Prayer for the Tri-town area.  A lot of the leaders/churches we work with are in this picture.  In addition to Suncrest, we had leaders participating from Faith Church, Crossroads Church, Harvest Ridge Church, St. John the Evangelist Church, and First Christian Church in Dyer. 

Why work together?  Because for all of us, it is about God’s kingdom so much more than our churches.  And we believe He will bless that.

Posted in Suncrest

I spent Monday and Tuesday in Naperville for our twice-a-year gathering with the NewThing Network.  Suncrest became part of this network over 2 years ago while we were on the path to becoming a multi-site church.

What we have gained has been so much more than we imagined.  Why do I find value in it?

It’s peer-oriented, not top down.  In the picture, I’m sitting with Brian Moll of Forefront church in New York City and Dave Dummit of 242 Church near Detroit.  All of our churches launched 2nd campuses in the last 8 months and we were sharing the surprises, dilemmas, best practices that we found walking through the process.  I had learned from other guys who did the same thing at our last gathering and I’ll learn again from other guys who do it at our next one.  It’s all about working through things together.

It is more than multi-site.  We got “in” because we were launching another campus, but what we have found is the power of “reproducing” at every level — whether it is leaders, community groups, campuses or planting more churches.  The “before” and “after” pictures of Suncrest’s connection with NewThing are powerful on all these fronts.

When you share a mission you find great friendships.  We aren’t all the same, but there are a lot of common drives and dreams among us — all about spreading the gospel further and faster.  Every conversation has me walking away saying “I really like that guy.”

It has “It”.  Craig Groeschel writes about churches that have “It” — that hard-to-define element that seems to make things click and grow and make a difference in the world.  And NewThing has “it”.  Less than a year ago, I was one of 3 network leaders and there were 15 total churches.  Only 2 were multi-site.  Yesterday, my last meeting was with 6 network leaders…working with dozens of churches, almost all who have launched sites or have specific plans to do so. 

And the dream only gets bigger…let me know if you want to know more.

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Despite not physically wanting to get out of bed this morning after my run yesterday, it was so easy since I knew I was heading to east campus.  It’s only the 2nd time I’ve been there since we launched it now over 7 months ago.

Here were the highlights:

-Seeing the set-up crew at work already when I got there at 6:30am.

-Seeing faces I had not seen for a long time…love the launch team.

-Seeing faces I had never met (even though they felt like they knew me).  This was huge.  So many great handshakes with people who call Suncrest their home now.

-Teaching in a movie theater.  what great environment.

-My kids came…they love what they call the “movie theater church”.

-Going away accolades for Kevin and Patti Richardson.  Kevin is pictured during a final run through.  We could not have launched this without them.

-And…my best story of the day…Bill Foster was a key leader from the church in Hobart that closed it’s doors and shared it’s resources with us to launch something new.  Today he came up, put his arm around me and took the time to share how their relationship with Suncrest has exceeded every expectation they had.  And…most important…that as suncrest east truly reaches their community, he said “this is what we dreamed about.”

 Gotta love east campus.

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Our community group met last night.  As always, there was a good amount of laughter, some prayer and good discussion related to our study of Heaven.

If people think the defining part (or even best part) of Suncrest is Sunday morning, they are missing something huge.   I love Sunday mornings but Friday nights at our house give them a run for their money…and in a lot of ways are a better example of real “church”.

Today was cool too.   I’ve been behind on my half marathon training and some from our group are running too.  Today, Jeff and Donelle Butera asked/challenged me to do a nine mile run with them.  I decided to go for it and to my surprise I made it. 

I would have never made it on my own, but that’s one small example of finding friendship to me…helping one another stretch themselves and walking (or running) the path with them.

Posted in Suncrest