.Real.Greg.Lee.

Matt Schmidt is one of my best friends from High School.  We got to see him last weekend at a wedding reception.  He’s in my fantasy football league every year.  And, he is the 5pm and 10pm news anchor on NBC’s affiliate in Quincy, IL.  Today, I’m watching him online as he anchors live coverage of Barack Obama’s visit there to work with people filling sandbags to prevent flooding on the Mississippi River.

I can’t believe it, but they are saying this flood will be worse than the one in 1993.  (This will be two floods within 15 years that are supposedly “500 year floods”).  I worked on sandbagging the levees in 1993 and it was amazing how people worked together in the midst of helping the greater good. 

I think camaraderie and sense of community are always part of the experience of serving together. I know it is true around Suncrest.  And it’s something people don’t even know they are missing until they experience it.

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* My wife, Trish and I have been attending Suncrest since the Spring of 1996.  We had our grandson Thomas living with us at the time and were drawn to Suncrest initially through the strong children’s ministry.

* My  parents, Ron and Anna May Allee had the biggest spiritual impact on my life in my growing years.  They just celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary so needless to say they also have had a great influence on my adult life and gave a great example of a strong Christian home and marriage.  After leaving home and going off to college, the campus minister at Purdue Christian Campus House, Doug Dickey, had a very big influence on my maturity as a Christ follower.  He married Trish and I and I will always respect his advice and leadership.

*Suncrest is truly a place where we can be used by God to change lives.  We are and always will strive to be an outreach to the local community.  The church is charged to seek and save the lost and that is what Suncrest is doing.

*Trish and I have been married over 30 years and have 3 daughters:  Krista, Kate and Karyn  and 4 grandsons and 1 granddaughter.  I owned Oak Hill Animal Clinic in Crown Point for 36 years and just last summer retired from veterinary medicine.  I now volunteer at St. Anthony’s Hospital in spiritual care one morning a week and do relief work for area veterinary hospitals.

*  Trish and I saw the movie “Bucket List” this past winter and are now working on our list of things to do before we’re not able to do them.  Things like white water rafting, sky diving,  hang gliding on wires through the jungle and any other wild thing we can come up with.  We love to travel and just last fall took a Mediterranean cruise around Italy.  This fall we are cruising through the Panama Canal.

* I love reading Christian books.  I just finished “One Month to Live, 30 Days to a No-Regrets Life” by Kerry & Chris Shook and am now about to finish one of the best books I’ve read “The Reason for God, Belief in an Age of Skepticism” by Timothy Keller.  I also enjoy reading John Grisham books and am now reading “The Appeal”.

* I count it a privilege to serve as an elder at Suncrest and look forward to our meetings and serving with the other men that we have as elders.

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Just finalized plans for this year’s version of our “summer study”.  It has a new, fresh approach this summer with a great lineup of “Hot topics” and a night of worship to kick it off.  Many Kudos to Bobby Jackson for designing an engaging plan for this summer’s study.

After a night of worship together next Wednesday (June 18), I’ll kick off the study portion on June 25 tackling creation/evolution.  Other topics will include homosexuality, war, divorce, and Christ’s second coming.

The format includes a chance to lay out what the bible says on each issue and also interact during a 20 minute Q&A.  Should be fun!

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I just walked out of our Business Management Team Meeting.  I know it’s weird for some pastors to think about, but I love our BMT meetings.  Here’s why:

1.  Smart, Smart people.  Entrepreneurs, accountants, hospital administrators.  Each bring their own expertise and each knows that none of us “know it all”.  The mix of gifts and personalities makes it fun too.

2.  Mission oriented.  This team has to be about facts and figures, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t about faith.  They want Suncrest to “be used by God to change lives” and that doesn’t happen by sticking to purely conservative approaches. 

3.  They trust me.  I’ve seen similar teams at other churches be dismissive of the pastor because he doesn’t have business training.  But, our team thinks differently.  I respect and trust them in their expertise.  And they know “church world” has similarities to “business world”, but also differences. 

4.  They test me.  Trusting me doesn’t mean blank check.  Far from it.  We’ve had our share of disagreements about steps that affect suncrest financially, even in the last few months.  I just think everyone believes that our conclusions to those disagreements are better than my perspective or any one of their perspectives.

5. My favorite…The things on their agendas don’t have to be topics in our elders meetings.  Tonight at our BMT meeting, they sold a piece of property, reviewed a potential lease agreement for our east campus, got updates on our financials, discussed funding future staff positions, came up to speed on leasing our excess land to a farmer, etc.  All of these things NEED to be done by churches.  I just don’t think any of them should be done by elders.  Because of our BMT, our elders discussion tomorrow night will be on big picture issues that will guide our church into the future.

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Every time I’m away from Suncrest on a Sunday morning, I can’t help but think about it.  On Sunday at 8:00am, I was getting ready to attend the church I grew up in…and thinking about our first service starting.  At 10:00 I was sitting down for worship…and was thinking Jared is probably getting up to preach.  At 10:45 (while listening to a good sermon), I actually thought about text messaging Jared to see how 2nd service went and tell him i was praying for 3rd service.  Crazy, I know.  But, I love this church.

And from what I hear, I missed an incredible Sunday at Suncrest!  I just listened to Jared’s message online and thought he hit it out of the park.  Our student life band is SO GOOD  — I knew they would do great.  Much of the BUZZ is coming from the drama the students did.  Hope I get to see it on video.  I hear it was done with excellence and packed a powerful spiritual punch!

Way to go teens!  I know you do it every Sunday down in the annex, but its great to have you share it with our adults.  You Rock.

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Weekends like this are ones to remember.  I pulled out of St. John at 4:30 Wednesday afternoon and got back late Sunday night.  In Between…

Wednesday Night — Had Dinner with Tim Barbee in Danville/Catlin, IL.   Tim was in my youth ministry at Suncrest and now is a youth minister at a great church in Catlin.  It was great to re-connect and talk about ministry with a guy who now is my colleague!

Early Thursday Morning – pulled into my parents house some time after midnight in Camp Point, IL.

Thursday – Spent most of the day with my dad.  He had his 3rd chemo treatment the week before, but was doing very well.  I helped him mow their yard and another property they own in town.  My brother’s family who lives in town helped too.  They help all the time — I’m really thankful for them.

Thursday evening — Went to watch my niece’s softball game and then my nephew’s baseball game.  They are both really good.  I love watching Megan because she is a catcher like I was in Little League.  I know I’m biased, but I think it’s the most important position on the field.  I loved Eric’s game because he is naturally talented…shortstop and lead-off man.

Thursday night — Jenny and the kids got back in to my hometown a little before midnight.  They had been in Texas at a family graduation and made the drive back with her parents all in one day.

Friday — Spent most of the day with my kids.  Had not seen them in almost a week.  A GREAT day.

Friday evening — wedding rehearsal and dinner for Jenny’s cousin Kayla.  I was performing the ceremony along with the pastor at their local church.

Saturday morning – 9:00am “Coffee at Iney’s”.  That is every Saturday and whoever is around is welcome so when we are in town we always go.  “Iney” is what we call Jenny’s Grandma Ilene.  And “coffee” includes homemade cookies and pastries.  Iney is one of the best cooks I know.

Saturday afternoon/evening/late night — I did the wedding for Kayla and Daniel.  They are a great couple and it was the first wedding Jack and Abby have gone too.  Jenny and I saw a ton of friends and family…and got home from the reception about 1:00am.

Sunday — After Church and lunch together, my brothers and I (OK, our wives), hosted a 40th wedding anniversary open house for my mom and dad.  It was a lot of work, but totally worth it.  They got to see a lot of friends, many who came from a distance and many they had not seen in years.  Mom and dad were married on 6-8-68 and are a model of a great marriage to me.

Sunday night — more coffee than anyone should drink in one 5 hour drive home.  Unloaded the car.  Checked my email and had over 100 messages waiting for me.  Had a stack of mail and newspapers.  Made a dent in them before going to bed.

A great weekend…

Posted in Suncrest

I got a lot of great feedback on the posts about elders from a couple weeks back, so I’ve decided to introduce you to one of them each week.  As our church has grown, we don’t expect our elders to be able to connect with everyone personally, but we do think it could be helpful for you to learn a little bit about them and put a face with a name.

John Stas is the team leader for our elders.  Here is his story…

I have been married to my best friend Jo Anne for almost 25 years and we have five children and one son-in-law. Our oldest Megan graduated from Purdue Calumet in May and is married to Andrew Umlauf. She and her husband live in Indianapolis. Our second child John (J.P.) is a sophomore at Purdue Calumet but will be transferring to IUPUI in Indianapolis this fall. Next, we have Jessi who will be a junior in high school and Taylor who will be a freshman. Our youngest Jennie, will start 3^rd grade in the fall.

Suncrest has been my family’s church home for thirteen years and I have been serving as an elder since 2003. I have been a Christian for 20 years and a Christ follower for 12 years. I distinguish between the two because Christ follower denotes an active role, whereas Christian can sometimes mean a passive state. I have been in both positions at times on my spiritual journey.

There have been different people throughout my journey who have influenced me spiritually but the common denominator between them is that they were people who motivated me to deepen my relationship with Christ. Take the next step. Whatever that step may be.  Since I have been at Suncrest one of those people has been Dan Smith. Dan has been an example to me in both his personal and business life of what a true Christ follower looks like.  Dan exemplifies what a giving, honest, loyal person is and I am blessed to call him my friend. I think Suncrest is full of people like Dan who unassumingly go about their lives influencing people for Christ by their example which is one of the reasons why I love this place.

Another reason I love Suncrest is because of the ministry focus.  I believe in Suncrest’s ministry because I think they “get it.” By that I mean the Great Commission where Jesus commands us to go into all the world and make disciples. At Suncrest they truly believe that the church exists for the people who are not there yet. Suncrest is outward focused but at the same time nurtures the people who call Suncrest home through relevant teaching and small groups. The ministry focus is centered on reaching people so they can know there is a God who loves them and wants a relationship with them. Whether that is in St. John or across the country in New England or around the world in Liberia South Africa, Suncrest purposefully focuses on changing lives.

It has been a pleasure sharing a little about myself with you. I hope it has helped you put a story to one of the names you may have heard around Suncrest. One last thing I want to leave you with that may surprise you. I have a great dislike (fear) of rodents. It doesn’t matter whether they are domestic (hamsters) or wild (mice) I hate rodents, and I have the broken broom handles to prove it! Stop me and ask about it sometime.

Posted in Suncrest

Just a few reflections from teaching on hell this past Sunday…

1.  I’m glad we did it.  As agonizing as it is to teach on and to listen to, it is worth it.  It’s worth it because we have a responsibility to teach “the whole counsel of God”; and becauseit has a profound potential to change us.  And I, for one, want to be used by God to change lives.

2.  I’m glad it’s over.  It had been 6 years since we had a Sunday morning message devoted to hell.  I’m not sure we’ll wait that long again, but it will be a while.  It has come up in different studies we have done (non-Sunday morning).  There is an endless supply of other necessary topics, many of which the Bible speaks about much more often than hell.

3.  Teaching on it affected me in a unique way.  After the 2nd service, I just walked to my office to avoid talking to people.  I never do that, but I was drained and depressed.  But I sat at the table in my office and just wanted to wait until I could hear the music start for 3rd service so I could go out and not have to talk to anyone.  Interestingly, after 3rd service, I felt the same way and tried to go to my office again, but someone stopped me to talk.  After I talked to a few people, I actually started to feel a lot better.  God used those people in my life.

4.  There is old thinking that we should avoid tough subject like this to be sensitive to unchurched people.  I think that’s wrong.  The feedback I got on Sunday from newcomers and people who attend that are not Christ-followers was positive.  In today’s world, I think people are looking for authenticity and conviction, not a “soft sell”.

5.  I’m glad we decided not to use the Culps (see previous posts).  At first it seemed like it would add some comic relief to a heavy day, but the more we thought about it (and had some great insight from one of our elders), we decided this wasn’t a day to make light of hell or use it to generate laughs in any way.

5.  I lived differently this week.  There has been a increased sensitivity to considering the spiritual condition of everyone I encounter, remembering and being motivated by Romans 8:1…there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Posted in Suncrest

Doug Gamble is leading the launch of our east campus this fall and he tells me we now have 290 people signed up to pray weekly for the launch.  That’s awesome, but we called the prayer team “The 300” for a reason!

Whether you go to suncrest or not, I’d love to have you pray.  You’ll get one email a week from prayer team leader Larry McManus and we ask that you pray over the issues mentioned.

For info on the prayer effort, click here.

To sign up for the team, click here.

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Steve passed away Tuesday.  For those not in the loop, Steve was 32 years old, founding pastor at Impact Christian Church in Merrillville, and fought cancer valiantly for over a year, but none of the treatments worked.

Steve and I went to school together at Lincoln Christian College in the mid-90’s.  The truth is, we didn’t have that much in common on the surface.  His interests were far different from mine.  We had two different groups of friends.  I lived in Titus Hall — he lived in the rival Timothy Hall.  We’ve both served in ministry in Chicagoland for 10+ years and most of those were within a 15 minute drive of each other.

Steve launched an innovative church (Impact Christian Church) two years ago that unapologettically used one of his passions and skills — professional wrestling — to attract a crowd to hear the good news of Jesus.  Honestly, I’m almost sure I laughed the first time I heard it.  I’ve since repented of that.  I’m serious about that.  God has used Steve and that church in powerful ways.

I learned Steve’s wife was reading emails to him as he grew extremely weak last week.  I sent Steve the following…

Hi Steve (and Candy),

This is probably one email among many, so I’ll keep this brief, but had to write.

I just want to say how much respect I have for you.  You have taught many people about true faith and what is important in life through this illness, including me.  And I’m genuinely fascinated by Impact Christian Church and the way God is using it to reach people most churches will not (certainly, ones Suncrest will not).  I am a big fan.

Greg

Today, I’m thankful for my brother in Christ, his ministry to people who started out as far from God, but now know Jesus.  I’m praying for his wife, his daughter, and his parents.  This family has made a kingdom-impact in our area.

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