.Real.Greg.Lee.

Mike in Liberia

In November, there is aonther great opporuntiy coming up to do two things I think every Christ-follower should do…

1.  Experience God’s world in a place that takes you out of your own culture.

Jack in Liberia

2.  Serve “the least of these”…people who have no less humanity, but far less resources than anyone in your everyday life.

Melissa in Liberia

Since our first trip to Liberia 2 years ago, there have now been 4 trips (pictures from the one that just got back) with Suncrest people on them and it is transforming our church and our lives…alongside making a real difference in this country we love.  Another one is coming up in November of this year led by Suncrest’s own Mike Robertson.  And I think you should go.

It is from November 5-14 and all the details are on a handout you can get by clicking here: Liberia 2011 Nov trip.  The most important thing right now is that the deadline for reserving your spot is coming up in the next week or so.

Brad in Liberia

Check it out.  Pray about it.  And get in touch with Mike.  His contact info is on the info sheet you can download.

Posted in Suncrest

A couple weeks ago, I was cleaning something out and came across a 7-year-old Suncrest Picture directory.  Remember those things?  It was a walk down memory-lane when kids where much younger, people weren’t married yet, hair was different colors, etc.  We’ve all been there. (And, no, we aren’t going to do another one.)

The biggest thing that struck me, though, was how many people have moved away in a short period of 7 years.  Northwest Indiana isn’t the most transient place on earth, but it struck me why building a church, developing leaders, etc is so stinking hard.  A lot of people you invest in move away!

Sean and Deb Flynn were just one of those families we really enjoyed hanging around, but a few years ago they moved to another state.  An email popped up in my inbox the other day from them and I thought it said a lot about you, Suncrest.  (My favorite part won’t surprise you…they nailed the mission statement at the end :-).)

Hi Pastor Greg,

I hope you and your family are doing well. I occasionally see a posting from you on Facebook, looks like things are good. I also see where Suncrest is growing!!  I just wanted to say how much Deb and I truly enjoyed all that Suncrest had to offer…We appreciated that when we were members but even more now that we have attended and served at other churches. The benchmark was set quite high..;-)

As Suncrest grows, we pray that at it’s core, it will always remain that awesome little church between the corn fields being used by God to change lives.

All of our Best,
Sean, Deb, Ian & Mac.

Posted in Suncrest

One year ago, Suncrest made our commitments to “The Jesus Mission”.  His mission to anyone who follows him is found in Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy spirit comes on you.  And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth.”

And we sensed God was leading us to follow that model…Locally, Regionally, and Globally.

One year later…the St. John and Hobart Campuses have GONE to launch new campuses and lay the groundwork for church plants in Liberia.  And people have GIVEN  $360,000 beyond all of our regular offerings to this mission. Wow.

Today, we have campuses in Highland and Walkerton, and new churches being started in Liberia.  All of them are already being used by God to change lives.

Update on Liberia Church Planting

Our church plants are Liberian-led (very important to us) and will be self-sustaining financially (rare in Liberia).

So far: one church is up and running in Ganta, with 45 people in attendance each week.  This is a ‘lab church’, being associated with Liberia International Christian College.  Ministerial students are leading the church- using their education and gaining real-life practical experience.

We are in the process of restarting a church which was destroyed by the civil war in Liberia.

We are helping Liberians with economic development (a rubber plantation achieve production) so it can help fund our new churches for the long-term.

While church planting is central, we have also provided our ministry partners materials to finish a medical clinic, supplied materials to finish a church building, and provided for a church to bring clean water to their community.

Update from the Walkerton Campus

We love Suncrest and that well over 100 people in Walkerton are a new a part of our Suncrest family.

We love that 70% of our regular attendees are serving on a ministry team and that over 50 adults are involved in a Suncrest Group.

We love that God allows us to be a part of man’s story in his ongoing battle with a 35 year addiction to alcohol and that God is giving us huge influence in a low income housing area that’s hungry for the hope of Christ.

We love that a woman has chosen to forgive a person who years ago had rocked her life and that God is using us to change lives.

Update from the Highland Campus

We could share great stats here to, but how about a simple story instead.  This is from Wes Blackburn’s blog this week:

This particular Sunday, our worship team was formed with five people. One was me. Two were Mitch and Spencer, two of our awesome teens who have stepped in and helped out in big ways at Highland. But the other two are a special story. Steve Ziembicki (drummer) and Dana Argoudelis (vocals) are both relatively new artists for our Highland worship team. This week was Steve’s second week to play drums for us. This was actually Dana’s very first week on vocals (she rocked it out, didn’t she?). It’s always exciting to have new people in whatever ministry you serve in; they bring a new life and energy to our teams that you just can’t get anywhere else!

But beyond simply being new artists, what makes me so excited about having Steve and Dana as a part of our team is that they are both brand new to Suncrest as a result of the Highland Campus. Steve and his wife Diane have been coming since like week number one back in September! And Dana and her husband Jim have come since December. Both were brand new to Suncrest.

Thank you Suncrest, for making such incredible investments and sacrifices to live out Jesus’ Mission here.

Posted in Suncrest

I’m biased.  I can admit that.  I love serving this church and I love, love, love our staff.

It’s amazing with all the change and growth around here – and the pressure it creates – how stable our staff has been.   I imagine some people think working for a church means everyone has a restful, peaceful, harmonious, slow-paced heavenly experience.  Uh…Not exactly.

We push our staff so much and they respond with such passion and dedication.   Their work is literally NEVER done.  They are expected to build life-changing ministries with excellence and continual growth…that are fully dependent on volunteers with ultra-thin budgets. Simple, eh?

What they DO  have is a sense of calling and a soul-centered belief that what we are doing is more important than anything else in the world.  To steal a slogan, “It’s the hardest job you will ever love.”

Every now and then, I try to help them “come up for air” so at a recent staff meeting I just asked them to reflect on what they loved about working at Suncrest. Here are some of the answers…

• Relationships as a team.  Common people caring for and about each other.
  
• Work with friends.  Flexible.  Talk openly.  Healthy organizational life.  Fun.  Great leaders.  We don’t take ourselves too seriously.
  
• Genuine belief & value of all people (especially me).  Depth/richness of love.  Holy discontent.
  
• Laughter & camaraderie.  Focused & purposeful.  Comfort/safe – can be yourself.   Flexibility.
• Support from leadership.  Don’t have to pretend.  Calling me to something better.
  
• Flexibility.  Family environment.  Openly talk about things.  Fun.  Best use of my abilities.
  
• Friendships on team.  Level of trust from congregation.  Laughter.
  
• Energetic staff, members, people.  Always having something going on.  Laughter is all around.
  
• Friendships on staff.  Trust among volunteers.
  
• The people I serve with both staff & volunteers.  Flexibility.  Excellence.  Fun.  We’ve not arrived.
  
• Being a small part of helping people in their relationship with God.
  
• The people  – real people.  Casual.  Laughter is everywhere.
  

I love our team…every one of them.  We are far from perfect.  We have our tensions and frustrations.  But we love it anyway.

Posted in Suncrest

I was in Boston Monday for a meeting with our church plant there – REUNION Christian Church, which means I was away from my family for the first night this year.  If you follow this blog, you know I made radical commitment to reduce my travel this year after being gone about 7 nights/month last year.

I was talking with a counselor friend last week about this adjustment and he helped me reflect on what I’m learning through it…

1. Be Creative. This is actually my second night away from home this year, but when it needed to happen in February, we spent a few bucks on a hotel and made it a fun family trip where I could get my stuff done too.

2. Paradox of missed opportunities. Isn’t it ironic that one reason I was gone so much was because I didn’t want to miss out on opportunities?  And now, the best part of being present is all the experiences I missed by being gone.  Lots of laughter, teachable moments, deeper relationships…

3.  Be firm, but not rigid. Legalism kills the spirit. Anytime something turns into a “rule to be kept” it is the perfect environment for either bitterness (because some rule kept me from something good) or pride (because of how disciplined I can show I was).    It was important for me to be in Boston, I could do it in about a 24 hour turnaround, and I could still do it in the spirit of “Radically Less Travel.”  Feels like the right combo.

Posted in Suncrest

So much to write. So little time.  Here it goes…

1.  We are getting some brief, but inspiring updates from the team in Liberia.  400-500 kids for VBS and 100 leaders for training.  Water systems moving forward.  You can read short updates from people on the trip by clicking here and here and here.

2. Bobby and Beka Jackson had their baby!   They are both just incredible leaders and teachers in our ministry.  Silas Levi Jackson is child number 5 for them…the picture is Silas being held by big brother Cooper.

3.  I know it has provided a few laughs for people, but I’ve seen self-destruction play out in so many lives that the Charlie Sheen saga is hitting me in ways that are painful.  The folks that inspired our “People of the Second Chance” series wrote this blog post about it.  I couldn’t agree more.

4.  I asked many to pray for a man in January who was facing a surgery with such slim chances that he was saying his good-byes to his young children.  Yesterday I visited him in his home again doing amazingly well.  I’m as guilty as anyone of praying for something and then not acknowledging God as the source when great things happen.  I was humbly reminded of a power only God has.

5.  Thinking about John Wasem on his birthday today.  Suncrest wouldn’t exist without his faith and vision.  He was (and is) the guy in my life who made all the difference for me when it comes to ministry.

6.  Highland Campus did incredible with their outreach event “Nacho Average Winter Escape”.  The leaders (especially staff and Robyn Delgado!) rocked and all the campuses came together to make it a success.  Love the power of multi-site.

7.  Jack received the good citizen award for his 1st grade class this week.  Makes me one Proud Padre.

8.  Prepping for a very challenging message this weekend about how sin has made our world a broken place.  Sobering to think so continually about this all week.

Posted in Suncrest

Calm before the Storm...a cafeteria transformed

I got to be at our Walkerton Campus on Sunday for the first time. Click on the pictures if you want to enlarge them.

I’m tempted to write a blog post so long no one would read it.  I’ll resist.  When I prayed with the team before the service something inside of me compelled me to thank God for how he alone continually “makes something out of nothing”.  Think about this…

During the storm. Great crowd. Great band.

-Suncrest had NO original vision for this campus.  It wasn’t in the strategic plan.

-Suncrest had NO launch team for this campus.  Sending 50-100 people from existing campuses wasn’t even realistic.

-Suncrest had NO clue about ministry outside of the suburbs. The dynamics are just different.

After the storm. Tearing down "Church in a Box"

-Suncrest had NO budget to launch this.  No Fear…our teams might be the best in the world at doing more with less.

So what is a church to do? We prayed about it, asked if it aligned with our mission, saw God beginning to fill gaps…and went for it.

Hospitality was off the charts

Out of Nothing…God has created something incredible.  When we trusted him, he aligned the plan with the mission of Acts 1:8 that was burning inside of us.  We are constantly learning how to do this across a greater distance and in a smaller community.  We still lack resources — the $80,000 launch budget from Jesus Mission generosity is 1/3 of the amount most campuses launch with.

One Church. Four Locations.

What we don’t lack 5 months after launch are people encountering God and results beyond expectations.  On Sunday (remember…NO launch team), there were 105 people there.  The hospitality was genuine, worship was excellent, the Children’s ministry was thriving, and the vision for reaching out to the community was palpable.

Classrooms transformed

I love what God is creating through Andy and the team (staff and volunteers) in Walkerton.  Something out of nothing.

You can see how they transform an elementary school into church each week, including creative concepts like seating in rows at the front of the room and tables in the back.  If you are at one of our other campuses and up for nice Sunday drive, you should check it out sometime!

Posted in Suncrest

I had the honor of offering the prayer at the NWI Sportsmanship Dinner last night.  Over 800 people, including High School Basketball Teams from 30 schools in the region gather for the banquet every year. The background is inspiring.

Almost 60 years ago, a fight broke out in the stands at a sectional basketball game at the Hammond Civic Center.  It didn’t involve coaches or players, but it was unacceptable to some business leaders in the region.

And they decided to take responsibility. They put together a banquet for coaches and players from 12 teams in the region the next year right before Sectionals started.  They funded it and hosted it with this as their stated concept: “get the players together to break bread before they faced each other on the hard court in hopes of instilling a sense of sportsmanship and fair play during the competition.”

It’s grown exponentially since then and is the longest running banquet of its kind that anyone is aware of. I’m a huge fan of what happened last night on a lot of levels.

1.  People saw a problem and they didn’t wait for someone else to fix it. No complaining about where society is going or telling school leaders to make more rules.  They were (and are) positive and pro-active in their approach.

2.  A community came together to solve a community problem. Some problems can’t get solved by an individual or by writing a check.  Social dilemmas are best addressed by a community of people.

3.  Older men are making real investments in younger men. Values get taught.  More importantly, they get caught by the selfless investment of one generation wanting the next to succeed.

4.  They go the extra mile. Beyond the banquet, now the leaders give out generous scholarships.  They reward players who represent what is right about High School Athletics.  And, they attend all of the sectionals in person, awarding scholarships based on how teams and fans display sportsmanship during the sectional.

5.  They do it all with excellence. If you are a Chicago/Indiana sports fan, take a look at a few of their speakers over the years:  Lee Corso, Al McGuire, Gene Keady, Norm Van Lier, Leslie Frazier, Mike Tomczak, Bob Love, Joe Tiller, Homer Drew, Matt Painter, Dan Plesac, Pat Fitzgerald. There is a total commitment to making this event a place young people want to be.

And, personally, it was inspiring to see so many Suncrest faces and names…leaders living out their faith and doing good.  Mark Hines is on the committee and I ran into plenty of business guys supporting the event or coaches and administrators from our school systems.  I’m confident God’s “Well done, good and faithful servant.” affirmation comes as quickly for investments like this as it does with serving in church-based ministries.

The Picture above is from the Times story on the last night’s dinner. It is a nice profile of a player who has grown in sportsmanship. Click here if you are interested.

Posted in Suncrest

I received a great gift yesterday…on many levels.  First, i saw a great Big East basketball game where DePaul came within seconds of upsetting Villanova.  Better yet, our whole family got to share the day with great seats and great company.

Mike with Jackson after the game.

We went to the game to watch Mike Bizoukas.  If you follow region basketball, you know he was a star at Munster High School and is now one of the captains for DePaul University. He’s a great player.  Not flashy.  Makes everyone around him better.  Hard-nosed defender.  Leave it all on the floor.

That and much more make him the exact kind of guy I’d love for my son to look up to.  When he took a couple minutes after a tough loss to spend a little time with Jackson, I was so impressed.

Jack spotted Mike's cardboard cut-out on the way in

Mike won all through High School and his time with DePaul has been a different story.  There’s actually a feature story today in the Times about Mike and how he is now dealing with losing.  DePaul’s coach had a few quotes in the article and obviously has the same respect for Mike that a lot of us do, saying “I think he gives a team that is going through difficult circumstances a big lift.” Click here for the whole article.

One last thing.  Yesterday only qualified as my 2nd favorite day with Mike.  My favorite was the day he baptized his mom at Suncrest last year.  This guy knows what really matters…

Posted in Suncrest

This Sunday we finish 3 weeks on relationships.  Our texting Q &A last Sunday reminded me of some Bible-based axioms I’ve learned and return come back to ALL of the time in relationship dilemmas.  My top 5:

Grace is Free. Trust is Earned.

Granting forgiveness quickly and without condition is both right and healthy (and it’s what God did for us).  Trust is different.  Trust doesn’t come from an apology, it comes from a track record of trust-worthiness.  You know you are being “played” by a person you have forgiven when they try to make you feel guilty for not trusting them.  Trust needs a track record. (You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.-Matthew 25:23)

Unexpressed Gratitude Communicates Ingratitude.

It is this simple. You could be grateful for someone, but if it goes unexpressed you aren’t just communicating something neutral.  They are receiving the message that you are ungrateful.  This is the most unnecessary cost to relationships I see.

What Gets Rewarded Gets Repeated

A similar mistake to unexpressed gratitude is withholding affirmation because you FEAR someone will “settle in” and think they are good enough when you want them to keep changing.  Or you think pointing out the negatives will motivate them to change.  It might even work to produce behavioral change in the short term…at a great cost to relational connection.  If you want to encourage change AND build the relationship, find something positive to affirm and build from there.

Talk to friends who are Insightful, not Incite-ful

A good, honest friend can be a huge blessing to your marriage or other relationship.  Too often, though, we talk about our struggles with someone who wants to “pile on”.  They might even do it with naive, but noble intentions of “being supportive”.  When your relationship is in a tough spot, talk to someone who (1) will tell you the truth about you and the other and (2) has successfully navigated the same relationship you are struggling in.  It is much easier to gravitate to the advice we want to hear, but much better to listen to advice we need to hear.

Love is a Decision

Anyone can love when you feel like it.  Your relationships will never thrive unless you choose to love even when you don’t feel like it.  In fact, it is the only action that has the hope of actually changing a relationship.

Come this Sunday for the end of the series.  It is all about how to restore life and fullness to relationships through forgiveness…and very practical advice about how our apologies either lead to forgiveness or short-circuit it.

Posted in Suncrest