.Real.Greg.Lee.

UBGTCL – I have a folder in my outlook with those six letters on it.  Do you know what they represent?  (I’m hoping you could take a shot at it if you are form Suncrest!)

It is our mission…Used By God to Change Lives.  In that folder, I just collect story after story that people send me  where our mission is being accomplished.

I referred to our mission substantially when I taught on Sunday and then got a cool follow-up email.  Let me briefly set the stage:  I told a story of a couple at Suncrest who (5 years ago) were pretty new to the church and the wife had never had a church experience before Suncrest.  I had asked people the week before to invite their friends/family to church and she brought about 15 people the next week. In my reaction, I obviously came off as surprised that she brought so many friends…and her reply to me was simple, “Isn’t that what you asked us to do?”  (Uh. yeah.  of course.)

Then I got this email from a suncrest attender this morning about that very same woman.

Years ago…my very good friend from high school youth group dated her and it was quite unsettling for some in the group because the question back then was “do we date unbelievers?”… In the end, my friend recognized her need for Jesus more than his need/ desire to date her and so we  began praying for her that God would change her life and that she would find Jesus. My point that I want to share is that whenever I see her or hear her name, I am always reminded of God’s amazing faithfulness and that she is a real life image of answer to prayer even when it’s 15 years later!  Not that it took that long for God to work but for me to know that God had answered our prayers for her. Needless to say I was speechless, I think my jaw actually hit the floor, when I ran into her at Suncrest at a women’s bible study and began reconnecting with her. Her story is amazing and I am honored that God crossed our paths even for as fleeting a moment that it was and that God used us and answered our prayers for her.

Posted in Suncrest

About once a month, we have a newcomers gathering. 

We used to do a full lunch…it was long, expensive, volunteer intensive…and OK in it’s effectiveness.

Now, we do basically a 10 minute huddle in the back corner of the worship area after every service.  I talk for 3 minutes and interact/answer questions for 7.  Today, we had close to 30 people, made some personal connections, and I felt like the next step for people at Suncrest was abundantly clear.

Especially in a tight economy, I think the “Return on Investment” question is HUGE and this one has been a a good example (and, frankly, surprising to me).

Thanks to Connect Director Mary Beth Stockdale for working toward the new system.

Posted in Suncrest

I met the Jack and Abby for lunch Wednesday and it was the only hour I saw them awake between Saturday night and Thursday night…so i took today off. 

We started the day with pancakes shaped like the letters of their name, then Abby helped me build a fire, then we took much of the day to make and decorate Christmas Cookies.  I didn’t even check the messages on my cell phone until about 5:00pm. 

Tonight, we had our annual staff Christmas party.  We keep it pretty low key…just a great social time together with spouses.  We had a great dinner with awesome steak and chicken provided by Kelsey’s Steakhouse.  Doug has some great pictures posted on his blog…click here if you are interested.

Posted in Suncrest

Feel like I’ve been posting on some heavy stuff in the last week about being a Reproducing church.

So, here’s a random numbers game:

1 – # of offers I got to go to tonight’s Bears-Saints game. Turned it down cause Jenny was at the church and I had not seen the kids all week.

2 – # of hours my sermon outline beat the 2pm deadline by today.  It probably hasn’t been on time once in the last year, let alone early.

3 –  # of Bears games I’ve predicted correctly this year.  Pathetic since there has been 14 games.

4 – # of hours I’ve slept in the average night this week.  Will be better tonight.

5 – Jack’s age, although he explained to me tonight that he is really “6” since zero was his first year and that didn’t get counted…”so zero is one, and one is 2…”  You get the point.

Posted in Suncrest

I’ve been thinking since our New Thing Network gathering earlier this week about Suncrest and being a “Reproducing Church”.  Here’s some of it in a very raw form…

-Reproducing is simple in concept to understand.  Part of every leader’s role is developing an emerging leader.  Part of every Community Group’s goals is that it would multiply and reproducing itself.  Part of every campus’ vision is to reproduce more campuses.  Central to the church’s mission is to reproduce more churches by planting new ones (hopefully ones that are have reproducing in their DNA).

-“Reproducing” is something a church becomes with leadership discipline.  Announcing that you are a reproducing church doesn’t make it so. (Big surprise, right?  Try just announcing that you are spiritually mature and see if it is so.)

-Like a lot of other things, there is a huge gap between a value being “known” and a value being “owned”.  At leadership levels (100+ people at Suncrest), I know the “Reproducing Value” is known.  Is it owned?

-I feel like we are a little backwards in our strengths (OK now, but will catch up to us if it doesn’t change).  We are good at the big picture reproducing (Reproducing Campuses and churches).  We are OK at the mid level (Reproducing Community Groups).  We can grow a lot at the foundational level (Reproducing Leaders and Artists).

-Our Community Group leaders have been the most effective at Reproducing.  Need to help it work in all other ministry areas also.

– I was talking to our elders last night about the 1 or 2 values we want to highlight in 2009.  Casting the Vision and keeping the gas pedal on this Reproducing concept is a leading contender.  I think it has to be this is the way if we want to launch 1 or 2 more campuses in a healthy way before the end of 2010.  Can’t envision us being ready in 2009.

-Always need to remember these great leadership nuggets — “What you measure is what matters” and “What gets rewarded gets repeated” — makes me think this needs to be central to our conversations and some healthy accountability structures toward this for staff and leaders.

Posted in Suncrest

There’s nothing like a little Thursday night football to shake things up a little bit.

Unfortunately, I think the Saints will shake the Bears up a little bit.  The story-lines are fun…

-Purdue QB Drew Brees vs. Purdue QB Kyle Orton (I like Orton, but we lose on this one)

-Will that federal judge stop blocking the suspensions of key players like the Saints Deuce McAlister before game time? (Probably not)

-Will New Orleans be able to handle to cold weather of Chicago?  (They may not thrive, but I still just don’t think the Bears are good enough to stop them)

-Will my Bears beat my nephew Eric’s Saints? (It’s all about Christmas bragging rights)

My Prediction:  Saints 31  Bears 17

Posted in Suncrest

I’m serious when I ask this question.  We had a New Thing Network gathering in Miami that I came back from today and I wrestled with going…only because of cost.  Things are tight at the church right now and we are committed to doing things that fulfill our mission, but ruthlessly eliminating any extras.  We feel like we should do this before asking for increased giving.

Every other reason was huge to go. 

-This is twice a year gathering for the lead pastors of New Thing Churches…and I am one of the network leaders so you would think I should be there!

-This network is  largely responsible for us successfully becoming a multi-site church, and continues to be the best place for coaching about our east campus…and any more campuses we hope to launch someday.

-This is still a pretty cheap trip for the church when we pile multiple guys into a hotel room and I absorb some of the cost myself.

-The best practices I learn about what is working in leading edge churches and what these churches are dealing with often turn out to be just what we need at Suncrest.

-What suncrest will benefit from in terms of future leadership residents, some financial models, etc. will pay off the cost of this trip many times over.

-And…best of all…we are building a movement the church in America needs right now…to think in terms of reproducing at every level…leaders, groups, campuses, and churches.  Does your church reflect this?  If not…why not?  And…how can we help?

Posted in Suncrest

I’ve spent the last two days with the lead pastors in the New Thing Network.  I’ll try to post in the next few days about some thoughts on the movement and specifically why the Church in America (and worldwide) needs a movement like this.

One interesting thought…What if the individual churches were designed with a life-cycle?  What if churches weren’t meant to live forever, but actually were designed to be born, thrive, and at some stage die?  That has actually been the story of most every church that existed at some point in history…including every church planted by the apostle Paul and others in the New Testament.

If that is true (and my bias is that it is), then It seems like the primary legacy of any church (like any person) would be whatever it can reproduce while it is alive…particularly new Campuses and new churches.

More on this later, but it really has me thinking.

Posted in Suncrest

I have a great life.  I try not to take it for granted.

I also tend to see the positive things in life.

That makes for a lot of positive reflection (good life + seeing the good in everything).  At times, I even feel like this blog is too happy…always celebrating something…  That probably won’t change, though, as long as I’m writing it from my heart.

But not everything is rosy.  Today I could write about a lot of good things.  Attendance was a record again for a non-holiday week.  We did 17 baby dedications…across two campuses for the first time.  Had a great prayer time after teh third service with a lady who was having God “pierce her soul”.  But, not everything is rosy.

How did I feel about the sermon today?  I struggled.  It was biblical…and that is about where the positives end.  I struggled to make it compelling.  I felt like it lacked a dominating theme.  I was more tied to my notes than ever.  I said something that won’t make sense when it’s on video at East Campus next week (referencing Baby dedications “earlier in the service”).  Ugh.

It will be better next week, but as any teacher/preacher knows this one will frustrate me until I get to preach the next one.

Posted in Suncrest

Our family spent some time today with 2 wonderful staff families making/decorating Christmas Cookies — the Jackson’s and the Gambles.

Bobby, Doug and I pretty much stayed out of the way as our wives and 10 kids decorated away (as you can see, Abby took a break to hold 3-week old Elliot Jackson).

Here’s the cool part…We snatched our share of cookies today, but ultimately they filled 9 plates — and we each took three plates home to share with neighbors who we will invite to our Christmas Eve Services.  Love the way our wives think!

Posted in Suncrest