.Real.Greg.Lee.

Our family got back early yesterday morning from a five day trip to Arkansas.  That was on the back of a 1 day trip to Tennessee and a 6 day trip to Boston/Manchester, New Hampshire for me. 

It was good to sleep in my own bed for the first time in almost 2 weeks. 

Here’s a summary…by the numbers.

Travel

5 – Hours spent waiting on delayed flights.  Not bad when you consider Chicago to Chattanooga to Chicago to Manchester to Baltimore to St. Louis.  Surprise, Surprise…all 5 hours were at O’Hare.

13  – Hours spent driving from Arkansas to home with 2 kids.  (It only took 9 before kids!)

5000+ – miles traveled by plane, car, and bus on the trip

Family

15 – family members at my parent’s Arkansas house.  It’s a big house…but everyone still has to eat, shower, sleep with some coordination.

27 – Holes of golf played in Arkansas…9 with my wife

0 – Holes Dad was able to play golf due to the cancer treatments.  We did get to play some cards and he’ll be back on the course next year.

1 – Days it took me when I got home to buy Jack a set of clubs.  We are goign to the driving range tonight.

Ministry

2 – Sundays I’ve been gone from Suncrest.  I hate this part of my “break”.  Miss you all.

1400 – High School Students that I spent 30 minutes speaking to one night.  I liked it because I hope every one of them has potential for being a kingdom worker.

8 – High School Students that I spent a week with in New England.  I LOVED it because I KNOW every one of them has great potential for a future in ministry (and maybe church planting in New England!)

Posted in Suncrest

If you are looking for the elder profile, just scroll down past this short post.

I’ve grown to love writing this blog for a number of reasons.  I wanted to blog through my 4 weeks out of the office to let people in some things I sense God is leading me to and Suncrest to.  It’s also a great way to share my experiences related to Suncrest church plants, etc..

Lately, there has been an increase in subscribers, web traffic, and personal feedback, so I’m finding this to be a great tool to stay connected with people.

Having said that, this will be my last post for about a week.  After a week away without my family, I’m going to spend a week with my family — Jenny and the kids, but also parents, brothers, and their whole families…and the golf course pictured above.

Thanks for reading and I’ll pick up the posts again next week.

Posted in Suncrest

Susan and I started attending Suncrest on the first anniversary Sunday.  We were searching for a church home and decided to skeptically give this church in a school, a try.  We planned to sit in the back in case they did anything weird, so we could slip out the back door.  After the first service, we knew this would be our church home.

I was raised in a Christian home so my parents had the greatest influence in laying the foundation of my becoming a Christ-follower.  I wavered a little bit from that grounding in my early 30s.  When I met my wife, she provided the influence to again make Christ my center.  I can not be thankful enough for having a praying wife.

I love today’s Christian music and I think it impacts me a lot.  There are so many songs that hit us right where we struggle with life and the things the world throws at us.  You can’t read your bible all the time (especially if you drive as much as I do), but you can turn on a song that talks about how glorious our God is or how we can reach out to someone else.  It can be the most uplifting worship experience in 3 minutes.

Suncrest has never wavered in the basic beliefs the church was founded on.  The church doesn’t go with the “trends” or what is the “hottest” thing of the day.  It remains a bible based teaching church that takes what the bible has to say and makes it relevant to what we go through day to day right here in Lake County, IN.  Whether you have been a Christ-follower for a day or 40 years, you can always come away with an “I didn’t know that”.  How many times have you thought Greg or Doug was speaking directly to you and it made you squirm in your seat a little?  The church has never been about just showing up on Sunday.  It’s a whole package of teaching, worship, Community Groups to grow and share together with others, and serving, whether it is in the church, the community or in the world through one of our Mission trips.

Susan and I have a blended family of 5 children, four boys and a girl.  They have blessed us with 7 grandchildren so far, as two are not married (yet).  We live in Lowell and the kids are scattered throughout the Midwest and East Coast.

Some may not know I love to ride my Harley Davidson (and that Susan does not) as a stress reliever.  We also own 10 acres on a mountain in Pennsylvania that we hope to retire to some day.

Posted in Suncrest

Lots of people definitely made it a fun day yesterday as I turned 34.

I was out of town so it did stink that I didn’t get to see Jenny and the kids, but Jenny called tonight and we had a good talk. 

The students greeted me singing their own version of Happy Birthday this morning and sang again tonight when we had cake.  I did suceessfully steal the candles, so they couldn’t literally put 34 candles on it.

Had some emails and I got more greetings on Facebook than I could keep up with – some people I see regularly and some old friends.  Facebook has been fun for re-connecting in the last year.  Click here to connect with me there.

Posted in Suncrest

At our first gathering in April, some of us were interviewed for a research paper on how devotional lives work in this next generation.  I found out they just published the paper.  It’s an interesting read except for that guy they quoted on page 9.  Click here to download it.

Posted in Suncrest

This did my soul good today.  I just got a text message from Jared Mehrle, our student life pastor.  He has a big group of students at CIY and he was overhearing their conversation at breakfast today.  They were talking about the 4C’s as they talk about growing in Christ.

I think the 4C’s are now defining us as a church…and I can’t think of anything I’d rather be defined by!  It’s no longer just something that is talked about on Sunday morning, but it is part of the conversation in Children’s ministry, Student ministry, our community groups…everywhere people are trying to grow!

Our 4 C’s aren’t perfect, but they remain the best picture of a disciple I have ever heard if we can remember it is never about hitting one of the 4 or 2 of the 4, but all 4.  Here they are again…or for the first time.

A Christ-follower will..

• Cultivate a Personal Relationship with Jesus.
• Connect in Relationships where Truth meets Life.
• Contribute by Serving.
• Care about People far from God.

If any one of these are absent in our lives, we are falling way short in following Jesus.

Posted in Suncrest

 …To Providence.

Today, we took the 8 high school students to Providence, Rhode Island to do some research for the church plant that will happen there soon. 

It looks like our missions team at Suncrest has decided to make a major support commitment to this work and I’m really proud of them.  Our vision for launching new churches in new England is only growing as we see how effective it can be.

Today, the students did some “man on the street” interviews to gauge the spiritual climate and receptivity of the area.  We targeted the Warwick area south of Providence, which is the leading contender for where the new work will be launched.

Posted in Suncrest

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Had a wild game of Candlepin bowling tonight in New Hampshire.  They don’t have this in the midwest!  Skinny pins…shot-put sized balls…and three rolls instead of two.  Since I’ve done this trip a number of times, I’ve quit trying to score and just try to have some fun with the high school students.  Tonight I…

-Convinced one of our students he needed to bowl from behind the second line for his second game.  it was about 8 feet behind the original foul line and he bowled the whole game that way complaining that others weren’t following the rules.

-Found our quietest, most reserved student and convinced her to be creative with her rolls.  She started doing some and then I told her to throw it like a shot put…and she did!  Right into the neighboring lane…and got a mean look from the manager.  She came back, sat down next to me and said as seriously and quietly as possible, “I’m the one who never breaks the rules.” 

-Made sure I was keeping score for our team and doctored the one girl’s score in the last 4 frames to make sure she beat this guy who is really annoying.

Posted in Suncrest

Had a good, long day in New England today.  Yesterday I got here with 8 high school students from around the country, including Suncrest’s own Cole Tribble.  They will be here for a week and I’ll teaching about church planting while they also have sessions on leadership and Worldviews. 

We kicked off the week today by worshipping at Suncrest’s first church plant — Rockingham Christian Church in Salem, New Hampshire — at their early service.  Then, we drove down to Boston and worshipped at Suncrest’s most recent church plant — REUNION Christian Church — at their late service.

These are two totally different churches, but are both accomplishing the mission of Jesus.  After lunch, I taught the first class of the week at REUNION’s offices.  Thanks to my good friend Jim Caler, we’ve turned the “teaching” on church planting into an interactive experience with a church planting simulation game.  Should be fun to see how it progresses through the week.

Back home, I hear we had a good Sunday.  Beka taught on the only female (Rahab) in our “Everyday People” series and our east campus launch team had a great lunch gathering with 90 people there.  Way to go team!!

Posted in Suncrest

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People are really connecting with this message series called “Everyday People”.  One of the concepts that came out in my message on Boaz last week was how God puts together events in our lives.  In this story, it was all summed up with 4 simple words in Ruth 2:3, “As it turned out…”

It’s fun (and faith-building!) to look back at times of my life where God was obviously orchestrating circumstances, but I didn’t see it until later.  I got the story below from guy with his own powerful story of redemption…and a key part of it was meeting a lady at at our church…

I had become a member of Match.com and had met three women for coffee to see if there was any interest.
Not only was there no interest-it was terrible. I would always meet at Borders because it was neutral and I liked going there.  After E-Mailing number 4 for a few weeks, we finally decided to meet for coffee.  The girls at work would always tell me how good Panera’s was so I asked No 4 to meet there.
 
Near the time to meet, I thought this is a waste of time, they never work, I’m not going.  Then I thought about what I heard about Panera’s and decided to go to see what Panera’s was like.
 
“As it turns out”…. No 4 was Darlene.  And because someone told me about a new coffee place I met the girl of my dreams and found the way to follow Jesus Christ.

As it turns out…God will use anything — even match.com.  I did this couple’s wedding a couple years ago and love how God is working in them.

Posted in Suncrest