There Is A Crack In Everything

I came across this story while preparing for our Christmas Eve service. It's a great story about what makes Christmas so great.

Edna Hong’s book, Bright Valley of Love, is the true story of a physically challenged child who found a haven of love.

Gunther was born near the end of World War I. His father was away at war. His mother would not care for him because he was deformed, suffering from a severe case of Rickets.

His grandmother, who begrudgingly took him in, hated him and was embarrassed by his deformity. She kept him locked up, out of sight and away from people. No one talked to him. No one answered his cries. They merely changed him and fed him when it was convenient.

At age six he couldn’t talk and his deformity, which increased in severity due to the lack of sunshine and milk, prevented him from walking. His father met and married a new wife. When she refused to have anything to do with Gunther, the grandmother insisted he be institutionalized.

They left him at Bethel, a Christian home for epileptics, as well as physically and mentally challenged youth. With the loving care of the staff and with the help of an epileptic roommate, named Kurt, Gunther began to learn how to talk and thus began to learn about life. In fact it was Kurt who told Gunther about Christmas.

The story of Jesus’ birth and the love of God filled Gunther with joy. But there was something else that filled him with fear - little Kurt, his friend, was getting worse. In fact, he told Gunther, one night, that he would soon be going to his heavenly home, maybe as early as Christmas time.

On the first Sunday of Advent, when Pastor Fritz began their Advent service, the joy and excitement of the day wiped out his fear. When the moment came for the Advent candle to be lit, little Kurt was chosen to do the honors. The children watched expectantly as Kurt took the small lighted candle and leaned toward the unlighted candle of the Advent wreath.

But suddenly, the burning candle dropped. A moan burst from Kurt’s lips and his body shook in spasm after spasm of an epileptic seizure. One of the nurses quickly took him in her arms and left the room. Pastor Fritz rescued the cracked, but still burning candle and lit the wreath, singing as he did so. The staff and children joined in until a shrill cry emerged from the heart of Gunther’s fear.

The song stopped and Gunther screamed, “There’s a crack in everything.” Every face in the room turned and looked at Gunther, but Gunther looked only at one face, the face of Pastor Fritz. Once again he flung his wild desperate complaint against that face saying, “There is a crack in everything!” And then he added, “What is so great about Christmas?” The silence of the room ached with Gunther’s pain.

Finally, Pastor Fritz turned from Gunther and appealed to the children saying, “Gunther needs to know what is so great about Christmas. Will you help me tell him please?” Manford, a child with a mind for mathematics said, “Christmas comes in December. December is the 12th Month. Christmas comes on the 25th day. The 25th day of the 12 month.” “So it does,” said Pastor Fritz. “Thank you, Manford.” Monika jumped to her feet, beamed at Pastor Fritz and spoke the only words in her vocabulary, “Alleluia, Oh Susanna!” And then she sat down. “Thank you, Monica.” Said the pastor. “Can anyone else tell Gunther what is so great about Christmas?” Petra, the oldest of the patients there, but with a mental age of only five said, “Christmas is so great ‘cause then God sent his son, Jesus our Savior.”

Pastor Fritz said, “That’s true, Petra. Thank you. But why? Children, why did God send his son to be our Savior?” Finally, Leni climbed form her chair to the table top and shouted, ‘Because. Because everything has a crack!”

Pastor Fritz said, “It is true, Gunther, that there is a crack in everything. God sees the crack better than we do, and the crack is ever so much worse than we think it is. That is why God sent his son. Not to patch up the crack. But to make everything new. That is why Christmas is so great!”

Primal - Review

Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity by Mark Batterson is by far one of the best books I've read. I've followed Mark's blog for several years and this past summer I had the privilege of meeting Mark and spending some time getting to know him. He's the real deal. His passion for Christ, his family, as a dad and as a pastor is evident in everything he says and writes.

Primal is loaded with historical facts, scientific studies, research, and personal stories. Some of Mark's stories will make you laugh out loud. Which can be a little embarrassing if you're reading in the middle of a crowded Starbucks. Others will make you cry. But all of them are told with creativity and purpose.

The premise of the book is the Great Commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all you strength. Mark asks the question "What if every believer lived out this verse?" I have to admit, when I heard that question, I thought this was going to be an easy read for me. After all I've been to seminary. I have a Masters Degree in church. I've served in full-time ministry for over 15 years and have been a Lead Pastor for almost six years. And recently I even travelled to a third-world country as part of a team to begin leading our church to take on a giant problem; children orphaned by AIDS in Africa.

By chapter three I knew that this was not going to be an "easy read." In each chapter I found myself challenged more and more as I began to rethink the calling of the Great Commandment and how I had been trying to live it out. Mark has a way of taking the religious concepts that the church has complicated through the years and boil them down to their simple, yet profound truths.

This book is hard hitting and in your face. Primal is a must read for any one who wants to be challenged to become a part of something that is bigger than they are. It's for anyone who wants to become great at the Great Commission.

Primal

Just started reading Mark Batterson's new book Primal today. I was one of several people chosen to preview it early and write a review on my blog. I'm loving this for two reasons.

One, it's great to get something new before anyone else does. I have a friend who used to manage a movie theater in our area. On several occasions I got to be a part of a mid-night showing the day before the movie released. Getting an advanced copy of Primal feels a little like that. Although he did just give out copies to EVERYONE in his church this past Sunday. That's probably about 1000 people.

The second, and more important reason I am loving this is because I know Mark personally. I met him a couple of years ago but got to spend some time with him this past Summer in a small group. He's the real deal and his books aways reflect that.

I hope to have the book finished by the end of next week and a review posted by Dec. 22. I can't wait to see what God does through this book.

Kenya - One Day Out

One day until our team leaves for Kenya. It's been hard to focus for the last couple of weeks. Now I'm just plain excited.

We don't really know what to expect from this trip. We're pretty much going in blind. Most of us are used to mission trips that have a primary task to be completed. This one is much more of a fact finding, relationship building, vision casting kind of a trip. I'm definitely out of my comfort zone with that, but experience tells me that's when God tends to show up.

We've got 7 people going on this trip, all from different backgrounds, from other states and churches and even from other countries. I can't wait to see what each person's role is going to be.

Our team hopes to be able to post each day while we are there. I will try to duplicate posts to this blog. Our team's blog is http://www.fairfaxcirclechurch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=44&Itemid=73

Piano stairs - TheFunTheory.com - Rolighetsteorin.se

5 Weeks Away from Kenya

Five weeks from today our team is scheduled to leave for Kenya. My excitement keeps growing in anticipation. Got my passport Monday night and that really made it seem like reality for me.

Last night we worked out some of the final expense details for the trip. Now we just need, money, tickets, visas and our luggage.

Can't wait to see what God shows us next when we meet with our friends in Nairobi.

Criticism 101

I thought I would pass this on from Mark Batterson. He's a local pastor and writer.

Evotional.com

Shared via AddThis

Kenya Project

We had a meeting last Tuesday about the Kenya project that our church has been talking about and working on since last April. Back in May we realized we needed to take a fact finding trip to meet with Nairobi Gospel Centre, the church we are working with. So we met to begin working out some of the details for that trip which we plan to take in November.

Here's the genesis story for those of you who haven't heard it. We had a leader in our church, who after reading Kay Warren's book Dangerous Surrender last winter, had a God-given dream of serving children in Africa who had been orphaned by AIDS. Our staff and her small group began praying about the dream God had given her. The Polaroid of that dream became a little clearer last April when a small team of three went to Kenya to do children's ministry training.

I asked the team to be sensitive to God's leading while they were there. I felt strongly that it was not by coincidence that they were going to Africa just as we were talking about how to help orphans there.

They were there for a week and looked and prayed everyday for God to show them something about this dream. And then, on their second to the last day God did something amazing. He introduced them to some women who had had the same exact dream. Here's the link to the team's blog and the post they posted that literally left me in tears at God's awesome power: http://kenyamission2009.blogspot.com/2009/04/this-is-our-last-contact-from-kenya.html

And so in November another team, of which I am honored to be a part of, will go back to Nairobi to meet with church leaders to discuss plans, details and to pray about how to help the orphans in that community. My prayer for myself, our church and the people in Kenya is that God would break our hearts for the things that break His.

This is a 12 year project, broken into 3 year phases. It's going to require a lot of time, work, expertise and of course money. If you want to be a part of it, join us. You need not be a part of the FCBC family to join in.

I can't wait to read this verse a year from now: “Come and see what God has done. See what amazing things he has done for people.” Psalm 66:5 (ICB)

Staff Retreat & Back to School Party

We had our first staff retreat this week. I referred to it as a "pray and play" retreat. The goal was to rest, have fun, debrief the past year and prepare ourselves, physically, mentally and spiritually for the coming year. We invited staff and families to attend.

It was a huge success in my opinion. It seemed like everyone really did relax, which is not always easy considering several of us have workaholic tendencies. We also had some really good discussions about how to prepare ourselves and how to put some spiritually displines in our lives.

We have an awesome staff at our church. We don't always agree on how we should do things. In fact our staff meetings can be pretty intense at times. But we are always unified and that unity is reflected in the rest of the church.

By the way, we accidentally double booked our retreat with a major event at our church. We were hosting a "Back to School Party" for 90 kids from low income families in our community. We collected school supplies for them and at the party we helped them pack their new backpacks with the supplies they were going to need for school.

With the execption of one, our entire staff was on the retreat during this event.

Some churches have staff that are willing to give up control and let lay leaders have ownership of ministry. And some churches have lay leaders who want to take ownership of ministry. Our church is fortunate enough to have both.

Water Wars

We have an annual tradition at our church that started about 4 or 5 years ago. The concept is simple: grill some hot dogs, hook up a bunch of sprinklers, slip-n-slides and the inflatable water slide and finish it off with a huge water gun fight.

We had our Water Wars this past Sunday afternoon. What a blast. It's great to serve in a church that is OK with having some serious fun.

Open Source Leadership

I love studying leadership models. I'm working on a sermon series for the Fall that I'm calling Open Source Leadership. If you don't know what "open source" means, look it up on Wikipedia.

I'm reading three, what I hope will be, great books on the subject of leadership:

• How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins. Jim serves as a teacher to leaders in the corporate and social sectors. The book is the result of tons of research on major companies like Circuit City, Bank of America, Motorola and Ames, and how they went from being at the top of their game to being in decline or shutting down.
• The Future of Management by Gary Hamel. Gary takes a look at some of the most innovative companies and their management styles including Google.
• Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels. Hybels is the Lead Pastor of Willow Creek Church outside of Chicago. I had a chance to hear him speak two weeks ago and was impressed with his passion for helping others be better leaders.

Found this video on the WashingtonPost: On Leadership: Evan Wittenberg, Director of Google Leadership Development

Worship at NCC

Our family was on vacation this past week. Yesterday we worshipped at National Community Church where Mark Batterson is the Lead Pastor. I loved the simplicity of their worship service. Great music and a great message.

NCC meets in the theaters at Union Station in DC as well as four other sites in the Metro area. They have a heart for reaching their city and the world.

Mark is also the author of In A Pit With A Lion on A Snowy Day, and Wild Goose Chase. Both books are great reads. His third book, Primal is due out January 1.

God's Sovereignty

I had someone track me down after church yesterday to tell me part of their story. They're not from our area but attented with some friends. They had just gone through a bad breakup in a relationship. My sermon was "Surviving Rejection."

One of the prayers I always pray when deciding on what to preach and planning sermon series is "God you know who will be there so help me to say what you want them to hear or know."

I'm never surprised, but always amazed, when I hear stories of God answering that prayer.

Youth Camp

I'm at camp (M-Fuge) all week with our student ministry. I love youth camp. This is my 14th year at Fuge. It's always one of the year's highlights. We'll be doing ministry/mission work in the Philly area.

Our theme for the week is "Faith to Love the Faith Journey." The words we're using to guide us are "stand," "wait," "risk," "let go." Great words for any follower of Christ to get their minds and hearts around. I think if we all learned to stand for what we should, wait for God's timing, risk getting out of our comfort zones and giving up some of our own stuff, and then letting go of the things that hold us back we could turn the world upside down.

One thing I know, the 350 plus students and adults at Fuge this week, if we get our hearts and minds around those words, God will use us to turn Philly up side down.

Can't wait to see what happens.

How Do You Define Success?

I joined a six week small group for dads for the Summer. It's down at National Community Church in DC. Their Lead Pastor, Mark Batterson is leading the group. Mark is someone who has a lot of wisdom for someone in their 30's. I've followed his blog for about a year and a half and read both his books. It's great to have the opportunity to spend six weeks getting to know him and some other dads.

So here's the question we left with last night: "How do you define success as a parent." I've actually thought about that question for over ten years. I have my own definition of success that I've continued to refine since my son was born. I'd be interested in what others think success as a parent looks like.

BTW, you don't need to be a parent to respond.

Jeremy & Jason's CNN Interview About the Missing Kidney

This is a great story that has the potential of bringing some inspiration to the rest of us. Jeremy is a friend of mine and a leader in our church. I knew him for about a year before I heard this part of his story. I was impressed but not surprised. He's just that kind of a guy.

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYiEmzRdpAc

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DSYiEmzRdpAc&h=e3769f6dbefe8ed661ac10d20a1ff907

Low Tech Church

Saw this pic on twitter and could not help but think "what are they thinking." It's a capture from a low budget televised church service.

A chalk board as a backdrop with the website written on it. I bet the website is awesome.

Junky Car Club

I spotted this, The Junky Car Club, on a friends blog. Thinking about joining it. I think having a 2000 F-150 with 90,000 should qualify. Here's a little of their history from their website:

The Junky Car Club was established in the spring of 2006 when Mike Foster decided to sell his fully loaded Infiniti G35 sports car to drive a junky 1993 Toyota Camry. As an act of rebellion against consumerism and with the desire to give more to worthy causes, Mike began to enlist his friends and people he worked with to join him in this experiment of driving clunkers and giving more.

The Junky Car Club has members in the US, Australia, Russia, England, New Zealand, Scotland and Singapore. So if you're passionate about social justice causes and are committed to living a generous life, the Junky Car Club wants you.

"Up"

I took the kids to see Disney-Pixar's "Up" on Monday. It's not your typical high energy, full of one liners movie, that you would expect from Disney-Pixar. But it's a "must see" in my opinion.

There's a scene in the beginning that's about five minutes long with no dialogue. When it was over, I guarantee you there was not a dry adult eye in the theatre. The way the artists captured raw emotion without words was amazing.

The movie deals, in an incredible, yet subtle way, with some difficult themes. Really three great take-aways in the movie. 1) Life goes on, even after a dream ends. Find a new dream and go after it. 2) There are people out there that need to be loved and if you don't love them and be there for them, maybe no one will. 3) The person who seems least likely to be able to help you may just be the best person to help you.

Dangerous Surrender

I'm loving the Dangerous Surrender series we're doing on Sundays and in small groups. Seems like God is really stirring some hearts to tackle some giants. I was really proud of Andrew and his friend Josh for standing up in front of the entire congregation and asking them to help the kids in our church help kids in Afghanistan.

Here are some stats that we used in worship today as we talked about Pushing Back the Darkness and what to do about evil:

• Human trafficking is estimated to be a 32 billion dollar business in our world today.
• Each year more than 2 million children are exploited in the global sex trade.
• There are twenty-seven million people who are slaves today. There are more slaves alive today than have ever been in the history of the world.
• It’s estimated that about 300-500 million people contract malaria each year.
• Approximately 2.5 million people die from malaria (a disease we have a cure for) every year.
• Every 24 seconds a child dies in the world from the lack of basic necessities.
• There are over 500 thousand children in foster care in the U.S. right now.
• In the U.S. there’s approximately 3.5 million people who are homeless. 39% of those are children.
• There about 2200 people who are homeless in Fairfax County alone. One of the most affluent counties in the nation. Half of those are children.
• 3% of the population of our nation’s capitol have HIV/AIDS. There are more people living with AIDS in Washington, DC than in West Africa.

“Anyone who knows the right thing to do but doesn’t do it is sinning.” James 4:17

G3 Summit

G3 is hosted by Highlands Fellowship Church in Abingdon, VA. G3 stands for "the Global Glory of God." The church brings in pastors from around the world to train them to reach their community for Christ. This time they had 35 pastors attend. There goal is train someone from every country in the world, and they are well on their way.

Highlands Fellowship Church is in a small, rural community. The church literally sits in a corn field. But they are doing amazing things to spread the Gospel through something called The PEACE Plan. Not only do they bring leaders to them but they send team into remote villages. Right now they are working in three areas and take three teams a year into each of those areas.

They've developed a great plan where they help a village drill a well, develop solar hot water and solar cooking. They have also designed a system for taking cow manure and turing it into two forms of gas that will power a cook stove and a gas powered generator.

The goal is to work with the villages in the spirit of love. When someone asks them "why do you do this?" that's their opportunity to share with them the love of Christ.

There Pastor had a vision for this when one day he says he realized that "esus actually mean the Great Commission. That we really are to 'go into to the world'."

Swimming Lessons

Andrew and Abbey started swimming lessons Saturday. Reminded me of my college days when I was a swimming instructor. I taught one summer. We ran seven, one hour classes a day and lifeguarded four hours a day, Mon-Fri. Did that for eight weeks. That was probably the best shape I've ever been in, in my life.

I remember one scrawny, red headed five year old. The first night he did not even want to put his feet in the water. When he did he completely tensed up with fear. All I could get him to do for two days was get in up to his waist and hold on to the side and just walk along the shallow end. Two weeks later, on the last night he jumped off of the diving board into my arms and then we swam to the side together.

Great memories.

I Love Staff Meetings

I know the title might strike a nerve with some. I've heard enough horror stories about staff meetings to know that not all of them are good experiences. And I know a lot of people who dread their companies weekly staff meetings.

But I do love our staff meetings. We meet every Wednesday at Noon and it never fails that all six of us come with different ideas, attitudes, situations going on in our lives, distractions, etc. But an hour and a half later, as we are wrapping up with prayer, it seems like we always end up on the same page and encouraged.

So staff meeting is definately a high point in my week.

PEACE Field Trip

Some of our staff are taking a quick field trip next Thursday and Friday down to Highlands Fellowship in Abingdon, VA. They are doing a one day seminar to teach some of their best practices for Local and Global PEACE.


Jimmy Davidson is a great speaker and a creative pastor. I've met him once and had the opportunity to hear him speak twice. I look forward to chatting with him a bit.

Welcome Back Kenya Team

It was great to see Regina, Carolyn and Elise tonight. They arrived back from Kenya this afternoon. I loved hearing their stories and loved even more the excitement they brought back.

This trip actually had two missions. One was to provide training to local children's leaders and pastors. They had around 65 people show up for the training. It's amazing to think that around 65 churches are going to be better at children's ministry because of the three of them.

The second mission was to listen for God's voice as He continues to prepare our church for The PEACE Plan. God has been leading us to Kenya for several years now. This past year he began to impress on a couple of people that He was leading them to be involved in PEACE through working with orphans.

At the end of their trip, I believe our team experienced a divine appointment. I've copied their blog entry from that day. I can't wait to see what God does.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

This is our last contact from Kenya. We had an amazing experience on Saturday and we will ask you to pray about this after I share with you. We went with the pastor and some others from church to the slums.....I had asked to see a children's home. I had been to an orphanage in Jamaica and thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong. The orphanage in Jamaica was a palace compared to what we saw Saturday. If you saw Slum Dog Millionaire you MIGHT be able to picture what we saw. Raw sewage and house made from scraps. I was SURE that the orphanage would be better. WRONG AGAIN. In a building that we would not let our homeless guests sleep in, we found 70 orphans, street children. We would not let our children even step in a building like that. I though parts would tumble down around us. The building should have housed 20 and it had 70. That is very common. There was no plumbing so the people use bags and then throw them. That could explain the smell and the flies. The children are not allowed to go outside to play because they would be in danger, so they play in a TINY courtyard. The adults do their best to serve them. A building with no ventilation and dirt floors is better than a child being at risk is the theory. Some of the children have HIV, some do not, but they are not sure who does and who does not. It was AWFUL. Our dear Pastor Charles even shed a tear. He had not been in there before. Our driver is the pastor's wife. She looked at me and said, our ladies group has talked for years about helping orphans, and now I know we have to. I asked her how she would do that.. She then explained to me that she and some ladies took one year and saved enough money to buy a piece of land. They have been waiting for help to build something on it. I asked if we could see it. She called the other women and we went to the land. Three white women and 5 African women stood on top of a hill, the wind blowing our hair as we cried out to God together for this land to be used to get children out of such dark places. It was a powerful moment for everyone involved.

Great Songs in Kid's Movies

I think it's awesome how today's kid's movies are using songs from the 80's. My kids watched Bedtime Stories several times last week while we were making the 8 hour trek to North Carolina. They loved the songs so I went to Itunes and downloaded some of them.

Yesterday, as Andrew and I were driving, he and I were rocking to Journey's Don't Stop Believing. He also loves, thanks to Guitar Hero, the best song ever written - Band on the Run.

Is Customer Service Back?

I heard a financial guy a few months ago say that the companies that make it through the recession will be the ones who reinvent and retrain their employees in customer service. I was excited about that because for years now it seems, at least where I live, that customer service has been lacking.

This past week I was in Home Depot and it seemed like there was someone standing at the end of every other isle asking me if I needed any help. And then when I was ordering my latte at Starbucks on Monday, they actually had my drink ready BEFORE I had even paid for it.

Maybe it's back. We can all hope.

Saying Yes To God Before...

I'm reading Kay Warren's book Dangerous Surrender. Our small group is reading it together and discussing it each Friday night. The theme basically boils down to "saying yes to God before He reveals His plans to you."

Got to admit that's not an easy one for me and my guess is it's not for most of us. I came across a story on another Pastor's blog that really inspired me. It's the story of how Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life came about.

In the early 90's Saddleback church was starting a building campaign. Rick says he and Kay felt led to share publicly with the church what their pledge was for the campaign. Kind of like King David did when they were building the Temple. He said he felt very awkward sharing that kind of thing publicly but he knew the Lord wanted him to so he did.

They pledged their entire salary for three years and had no idea how they were going to be able to do it. A few weeks later Zondervan called and offered a book deal to Rick to write Purpose-Driven Church and Purpose Driven Life. The advance was the exact amount they had pledged.

I don't think there's any question why The Purpose Driven Life has become the best selling book that it is.

When the Church is the Church

I haven't posted anything for two weeks. For the last 10 days our church has been providing overnight shelter for the homeless in our community. It's always a busy, tiring, emotional, exciting, etc. time. So for the last day or so I've been processing some of the things I saw and experienced.

The way I would describe the week is "This is what it looks like when the church is the church."

We housed around 40 homeless guests each night and provided them with 3 meals a day for 10 days. We partnered with our local government, para church groups and other churches to provide this service from Nov. through this morning. Our goal was that no one would die from exposure to the cold.

But when the church is the church it always finds a way to go above and beyond the goal. And that's what our church did this week. Our volunteers truly saw our guests as just that - guests.

While I did not see everything that happened this week I did see our church be the church, and it occurred to me that we did that through little things. Things like:

-Floy and Carrie being at the registration table every night, knowing everyone by name.

-Mike and his team in the kitchen on the first night. They not only had a blast serving but set the bar high for the quality of food for the rest of the week.

-The small group who showed up every morning to make lunches for the next day.

-Chris Sole who just signed up to be a driver and ended up being there every night and not only drove but literally did every other job there was - always ready to do what ever needed to be done.

-The Duncan's small group who, on Sunday night, seated our guests at the tables, gave them menus, took their orders and then served them steak with the works and homemade milkshakes. Can you say dignity. Many of our guests have not sat and been served in a restaurant in years.

-Jeremy our team leader who may have missed his calling because he was a better social worker than the actual paid social workers who were there. I was so impressed with how he handled every situation with calm and ease and always treated our guests, even those ready to throw punches at him, with grace.

-People like Cathy, Jamie, Alice, Mike, David, and just about everyone involved sitting and having conversations with our guests. Not small talk but real eye to eye conversations.

-Jeff and Jamie who in the middle of a major family crises found the strength to continue serving and leading.

-Elise and her team that did foot spas and manicures. It was such a hit they had to come back a second night.

-Carolyn and her team who mended people's clothes.

-Danny and Jen who had the original vision for our church caring for the homeless three years ago. And even though they could not be there this year, they were at home every night with their two newborns praying for our guests and volunteers.

-The 11-4 and 4-8am shifts. Those guys are a little crazy. You'd have to be to find as much joy serving at that time of the day as they did.

I couldn't be more proud of our church for the little things we did this past week. God says in scripture "Well done good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in little things, now I will give you greater things."

That's what happens when the church is the church.

Reaction vs. Acting

I was reading Mark Batterson's Wild Goose Chase this morning. He framed a truth in a way that really grabbed my attention. He basically said many of us act like Christians but we don't always react like Christ. "How we react says a lot about who we really are." Wow. As I look on my own journey I can see how it's easy for me to generally act like a Christian but when I get "bumped" in life, sometimes my reaction is not so Christ-like.

Great food for thought. BTW - I highly recommend Wild Goose Chase.

Letting Kids Serve

One of my goals as a parent is to instill in my children a passion for helping and serving others. I'm intentional about doing that in a lot of ways.


For example, my son has a friend who had to have a number of surgeries when she was very young. On several occasions, when I was going into to DC to visit her and her parents at the hospital, I took Andrew with me. I wanted to let him see what serving others looked like and give him an opportunity to do it himself.

Yesterday we had a parent/teacher conference with Abbey's Kindergarten teacher. She said Abbey is doing great, excelling in some areas and right on track in others. That was great to hear, but what really thrilled my soul was when she described, without really knowing it, how Abbey was serving a couple of her classmates on a daily basis.

Two of the boys in her class have learning disabilities. One of them has Down syndrome. Abbey seems to have a God given sensitivity when it comes to kids her age who need special attention. The thing that really almost brought tears to my eyes was when her teacher said that Abbey was so helpful with the boys that she actually moved them so that they are sitting next to Abbey in class. She said Abbey had a great way of gently helping them stay on track without calling attention them.


I love watching my kids grow and seeing their spiritual formation develop right before my eyes. Can't wait to see what God has in store for them.

Great Pastors

I think the mark of a great pastor is one who is willing to help, support or encourage other pastors. That's something I strive to do. I've met pastors in the past that have the attitude that they are in competition with other churches and therefore other pastors. In Fairfax County, where I serve, there's about 1.6 million people, and the last stat I read said that about 75% of them are unchurched. So to be in competition with another church is silly. The harvest is truly plentiful.

I had a great meeting last week with Rod Stafford who pastors Fairfax Community Church. Rod is a great guy and was a huge help to me. He's incredibly genuine and I really appreciated his encouragement. I hope to get to know him better down the road.

I'm meeting in a couple of weeks with Ray Bearden at First Baptist Woodbridge. I've known Ray for about 10 years. I don't know him really well but he has a great reputation in our local network of churches.

The reason I'm meeting with these guys is to pick their brains a little about some of their best practices in church growth. When they became pastors of their churches, the churches were in similar places as our church is now - about the same size and wanting to impact their communities but needing to strategically plan and organize themselves to do that. And in my opinion they have both been successfully in leading their chruches to impacting their communities.

So I think I can learn from Rod and Ray. And I'm thankful that they are willing to be a part of our churches success.

Along the same note I just want to stop and take the time to thank some other pastors who have taken the time to mentor, encourage, support and teach me along the way:

-My dad, Charles Magnet (first and foremost), Rod Mooney, Rev. Harold, Art Turner, Bill Shoulta, Vernon Cole, My brother Chuck Magnet, Joe Gill, Steve Welch, Samford Beckett, Greg Loewer, Bob Felts, Rusty Coram, Rick Warren, Joe Long, Mark Batterson, Rich Hurst, and the ones that I'm sure I've forgotten.

Processing Yesterday

I usually try to keep my posts positive but I need to process yesterday's events and this is my best outlet.

I was driving back from taking our puppy to a dog park to let him run off some energy and socialize with other dogs. As we were driving home down Rt 29, in Centreville, VA, I noticed smoke coming over the treeline. It was a cold day but I knew the smoke was too thick and dark to simply be coming from a chimney.

About a mile down the road I could clearly see what I had feared; it was coming from the roof of a house. Rt. 29 is a very busy four lane road but at that point no one was around the house. I pulled into the neighbor's driveway and called 911. As I jumped out of my truck another guy was pulling in behind me. He ran to the house and I ran to the neighbor's house (which was very close) to alert them.

As we tried to get in the front door of the house we could see the second level was full of smoke and the flames were coming down the stairs. We began looking in the bottom floor windows to see if we could see anyone inside. By that time the backyard was already burning from the debris coming off the back of the house.

Just minutes after Fire and Rescue arrived the house erupted with flames and smoke. It was so intense they had to spray the houses on both sides to keep it from spreading, and at one point they were concerned that they might lose several houses in the neighborhood. It ended up being a two alarm fire that took 60 firefighters an hour to get under control.

An elderly gentleman was inside and died in the fire. Talking with the next door neighbor I learned that the man lived there with his daughter and son-in-law and that the man's wife had passed away a couple of months ago.

So, those events and that family are weighing heavy on my heart and mind.

Thank God for Snow

This past Sunday, the teaching was on the ways God speaks to us. One of the ways I said God speaks is through godly friends and family. And God doesn't just use them to guide us but to point us toward Him as well.

When Andrew, my 10 year old son, woke up this morning he was so excited to see the blanket of snow on the ground. I was upstairs but could here him, in his insistent voice, telling his mom they had to stop and thank God for the snow. "No Mom, we have to do it together, right now!" Wow!

Two things:

One, I'm glad we have a God who can use even 10 year olds to teach us. And two, the question that's guiding me today is "What have I overlooked in my life that I need to stop and thank God for?"

Inauguration

I'm at work today doing things that I can get done while still watching the Inauguration on TV. It's so exciting to be so close to history as it's being made. My office is 15.2 miles from the White House.

Worship Experience

As a pastor, it's great to be able to worship where, as the song goes, "nobody knows your name." I had the chance to do that this weekend while on vacation. We were still in the Fairfax area so we went over to Fairfax Community Church's Saturday night service. I loved the 5pm Sat. service.

Rod Stafford is a great speaker. It was the first time I had heard him or met him. Got a chance to talk with him for a little while after the service. When I mentioned where I pastored he said "you guys have a lot going on over there and are making some great changes aren't you?" Turns out his good friend Kevin Ford who runs the church consulting firm our church is working with had been talking with him about our church and some of the things we are doing. I hope to get with Rod in the future, I'm sure I can learn a lot from him and his success.

2009 Off to a Great Start

2009 is off to a great start. Had an awesome time this past week spending time with my parents and my family. I've already seen three movies this year, which is probably my total count for last year. I recommend Bedtime Stories. It was hilarious. The Spirit was OK but nothing spectacular (I was actually going to see Grand Torino but it was sold out.)

Andrew got the new Monopoly game. I felt really old playing it. The game no longer uses play money. Rather it uses an electronic banker and each player has a credit card with a $15 million line of credit. You can even pause the game an come back days later.

Looking forward to 2009 and all that it will bring.