.Real.Greg.Lee.

Since I just mentioned Jon in my last post, I should mention Dave Ferguson too.  He’s the lead pastor at a pace-setting church in Naperville – Community Christian Church.  Actually, CCC isn’t just in Naperville, it is in Romeoville, Shorewood, Chicago, Montgomery, and more.  This idea of being a multi-site church — one church in multiple locations is a move suncrest will make soon.

Dave posted a link to this article from Forbes Magazine on his blog and I think it’s a must read about the potential power of the church if it were ever unleashed.  This isn’t “pie in the sky” thinking, either — read it and start thinking how incredible the potential of the church is to fight the problems of the world.

Posted in Suncrest

Jon Ferguson is a friend, a guy with all kinds of insight about ministry, and, sadly, a cub fan.

He just posted this on his blog and thought it was worth repeating…

“The Cubs were swept by the team who was swept by the team who was swept by the team who won the World Series.  That has to make the Cubs one of the worst teams in the history of Major League Baseball to make the playoffs.  Sad, isn’t it?”

You can click on his blog as one of my links in the right hand column.

Posted in Suncrest

Are you like me…did it take you a while to get the tune of Life is a Highway out of your head?  Maybe it’s because I was in all three services.  Maybe it was because Mitzi put that microphone in front of me to sing in the first service…and then again in the third!!  I’ll get her back somehow.

It was a great Sunday…full of newcomers and strong attendance even on a fall break weekend for some schools, but since I spent last week’s email talking about the cassette tape handout, I missed a chance to reflect on the 4C’s of Puzzled…if you will allow me I’d like to take a personal slant on that…

One of the absolute worst fears a preacher/teacher could ever realize is this: though he has poured his heart and soul into explaining and applying God’s word, the people he is teaching would never change.  Never respond.  Never be compelled to act on what they have heard.  Maybe that’s why I loved this series so much.  There was…week after week…kind of this palpable sense that people are embracing the 4C’s of cultivate, connect, contribute, and care. Here’s what I mean: 

• We talked about connecting in relationships where truth meets life and had an immediate response of 444 people agreeing to give it a chance in the setting of a small group.
• The next week, we talked about cultivating a personal relationship with Jesus and I when I talk to Suncrest people the conversation always seemed to go to how the daily reading/reflecting/prayer guide had shaped them in some way.
• On the third week, we talked about contributing by serving and within hours hundreds and hundreds of people had gone out to serve at a nursing home, or to encourage our missionaries, or work on our grounds.
• On the final week, we talked about caring about people far from God and the next week our services were full of new faces.

That is definitely cool.  My prayer is that it is sustainable.

I just prayed here in my office that you and I would sustain our personal commitment to growing in these four attributes of a Christ-follower.  Faith isn’t a one-time act…it’s a journey!

I also just prayed that Suncrest would sustain our commitment to these four areas of focus.  If this is what God has called us to…it can’t be a seasonal idea or the latest fad.  At our core we’ll need the discipline to not be distracted by other good things and lose the focus of making these four qualities a growing part of all of our lives here.

I love you guys.  Let’s be as intense about the 4 C’s next year as we are right now.

Posted in Suncrest

Before I die…
I was going through an old file today and came across a top ten list I had made over 6 years ago with a small group Jenny and I were in.  It was one of those “10 things I want to do before I die” types of lists.  Thought it was fascinating…I’d say a few things differently today, but it is a pretty true snapshot of me…

1. Lead a continuously growing church
2. Baptize my children
3. Hold a world record in something
4. Write a book
5. Travel to space
6. Serve a single church for more than 20 years
7. Have a personal conversation with the world’s most influential person
8. Watch my children baptize my grandchildren
9. Be at my parents sides when they die
10. Never get to the point of bitterness…about anything.

You should try it.  Even if it isn’t 10, I’d love to hear some of yours.

Posted in Suncrest

Posted in Suncrest

We start a new series this week called “Mix Tape”.  If you don’t know what a Mix Tape is, I’ll have more on that later.  For what it’s worth, on Week 1 we are using the song “Life is  Highway” to introduce some themes about what life is…and what it isn’t.

 Remember this song?  It was originally done by Robert Cochran then recently re-done by Rascal Flatts and featured in the Movie Cars.

Enjoy…

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Rascal FlattsLife Is A Highway

Music Videos And Lyrics On Demand

Posted in Suncrest

Wrote the following last week for our weekly suncrest update.  Can’t wait until our group meets tonight…

444 of you are experiencing something powerful this week – a Suncrest Community Group!  Mary Beth Stockdale, her Group Leaders and her Coaches (leaders of group leaders) have poured themselves into helping us process what it means to grow as a Christ-follower.  We’ve never seen such an amazing response in people getting into groups.

And after last night, I believe we will see an equally amazing response to what happens in the groups.  Jenny and I hosted ours last night and it was a blast.  We met new people and  I’m outrageously excited…

It’s not just because I have a carpenter and a mechanic in my group, though that could come in handy J. 

It’s not just because we have a pilot in our group who flies all over the world and told me I could ride along sometime J. 

It’s because of everyone in our group meeting for the first time, and anticipating what God might do through it. 

It’s because of the potential for new friendships…friendships of substance….and not just with me, but watching people connect with each other.

It’s because we have people who might be in different places on their spiritual journeys, but are all committed to moving forward. 

It’s because we have some awesome women in our group who I saw my wife connecting with last night over dessert. 

It’s because we have two couples who couldn’t make it last night, but will just add to this whole experience next week.

We tackled Connect this past Sunday.  And we have Cultivate this Sunday (awesome stuff about what it means to have a relationship with Jesus).  But I have to give you the heads up on the following Sunday, October 7.  Here’s all you need to know…It is “Contribute by Serving” Sunday and it would be awesome if you block out about 90 minutes after whichever church service you attend!  We’ll let the rest be a surprise.

Posted in Suncrest

I had lunch yesterday with Bob Bouwer.  He’s the lead pastor at Faith Church in Dyer and a really great guy.  Faith is reaching people like crazy with the gospel and I told Bob today they have been successful at something I’ve never seen another church in our region do — reach people on both the Illinois and Indiana sides of the state line.  I know it’s been an invisible wall for us.  We have people who drive 30 minutes from parts of Merrillville, Hobart, Winfield, Hammond, etc, but people that live 10-15 minutes away in Illinois seem to be in a different world.  Bob is a guy I know I can learn a lot from and I look forward to connecting again soon.

Last night, we had our first community group of the season.  We had 23 adults sign up for our group and, sadly, had to redirect some to other groups because our house can’t handle that!  We still have 14 and I loved last night!  Most of the people I’m getting to know for the first time, and there are some cool stories.  I won’t share anything personal here without the permission of the person sharing it, but one thing is always fascinating to me — the variety of people we have at suncrest.  One of the guys in our group played minor league baseball for 2 years and another is a pilot who literally flies all over the world regularly.  He and his wife came to Suncrest at the invitation of someone he taught to fly.  Recently, he has flown troops to Kuwait and Germany and has done some charter flights to Bolivia.  I asked him if I could ride along sometime…and he said yes!  Gotta find a time to do that.

Posted in Suncrest

I’m a  proud alum of Lincoln Christian College and Lincoln Christian Seminary.  It’s private college in Lincoln, IL where I spent 4 years in undergrad (class of ’96) and 5 years commuting from Suncrest to get my M.Div. in 2001.  Lincoln has a lot great alumni leading some of the best churches in the country at reaching people far from God– Gene Appel and Mike Breaux at Willow Creek, Dave Ferguson and Jon Ferguson at Community Christian in Naperville, Jud Wilhite at Central Christian Church in Vegas. 

I’ve been back on campus a couple of times to speak in chapel or at one of their youth events or to help teach a class and I got to go back again Tuesday to  teach on “leadership development” in a Church Planting class.

 I took two of our elders with me and also our Student Life Pastor.  We got to have lunch with most of the 8 students Suncrest has at Lincoln right now studying for ministry (mostly missions, which is awesome!).

 It was a long day, but there aren’t many things more energizing to me than (1) church planting, (2) talking about leadership and (3) dreaming with people about how God might use them.  Got to do that with some of our Suncrest students one-on-one in the afternoon and with the whole class that night.

If you know about Lincoln, but haven’t been there for a while, you have to get back to campus — they have really made some incredible steps forward in facilities.  Proud to be an alum!

Posted in Suncrest

On Sunday, we got invited by some great people at Suncrest (Lee and Deb Eades) out to their “sorta ranch” as Lee calls it.  Jack loved riding the horse…but he and I loved riding the 4 wheeler really fast even more.  Abby loved petting the horse, but wasn’t up for riding it yet.  It was a great night!

Earlier in the day, we went to a birthday party for one of our neighbors who is turning 2.  We love the neighborhood we moved into — lots of young kids and over the summer we started to really connect.  Seems like the kids from 2 of the houses are always in our backyard — or kitchen!  I invited one of the neighbors Sunday to our community group that starts Thursday night.  Got a positive, but non-committal reaction.  Hope they will come sometime soon!

Posted in Suncrest