Our church just finished hosting the first Small Church Conference. we had Craig Groeschel, Toby Slough, and Dave Workman in as keynote speakers. We also had other speakers in that were incredible and they really helped us a lot! i wanted to share in this post some things that got me thinking over those 2 days.

Dave Workman (from Cincinnati Vineyard) spoke on being an Outward Focused church and leader. It was great! The thing that he said that has been seared into my soul is, “What if the church were known less for what it was against, and more for what we DO?”
Holy smoke!
What a question! It’s so true. if you ask most people – non church people – what church or Christians are about, they would most likely tell you all the things churches and christians are AGAINST!

churches are very good to tell you what is wrong and what NOT to do. but very rarely are we actually living lives of love and serve in the world. It got me thinking…what if someone asked a random guy in Edmond what theedge church was about? What would that guy say? What if someone asked a teacher, a business owner, the mayor about theedge church? What would they say? Would they know who we are? would they care? would they be positive, negative, indifferent? Would they say what we are against? or would they say, “those edge people really know how to do ___________________ (fill in the blank.”

I want to be a church that does! Who cares what we are against! People in need do not need to know what we are against…they need to know that we are a church that cares and does!!!

Craig (from lifechurch.tv) came in on wednesday and really challenged all of us. there were tons of good things that he said that i could share here, but the thing that pierced me was when he said, “what got you here, cannot get you there.”

again…holy smoke!!!!

what a simple, but incredibly profound thought.
Just because something worked 5 years, 1 year, 6 months ago…does not mean it still works or it will work at this point! So many times we as church leaders will keep doing the same dang thing over and over and over just because it really worked the first time! But how many times do we find ourselves “manufacturing energy” (as Andy Stanely says) on some dead ministry or program, just because it worked before!
what got us to 100 doesn’t mean it will get us to 150. What helped disciple women last year, might fail miserably this year. What fired up youth about missions last summer, may be completely irrelevant to them next summer.
it really got me thinking! What am i spending time, energy and resources on at theedge that is a total waste of time. in fact, my wife came home that night and told me she was going to cancel a women’s deal she has been doing and do something completely different from now on! She heard Craig speak on wednesday and she had killed the program by wednesday night!!!! awesome!

the last session was Toby Slough (from Cross Timbers Community Church). it was amazing!

he shared about his 90 day sabbatical that he took last summer and what God had shown him during that time. he said there were many things, but 2 of the words that stood out were “identity” and “rhythm.”
he spoke about identity. he said too many pastors get their identity wrapped up in what we DO, instead of Jesus being enough.

Toby made a statement in his talk…”If i’m not a pastor, then who am i?”

Wow! That hit me hard!

I started to think about that. What if i couldn’t tell people what i do? What if i took 3 months and just committed to not telling anyone that i am a pastor…i could say anything as long as it was not what i actually do for a job. How would that impact me? I started to wonder how much my title means to my self worth. Could i really get to a place where my identity is rooted in Jesus? Is Jesus really enough?

so, this week was a great week! i met a lot of guys and girls in ministry. i hope we will stay connected and work together. I can’t wait for the next SCC event. And i am so thankful for guys like Craig, Dave, and Toby who are REAL! These are real guys, with real hearts, and they really do care about Jesus and the Body!

So why is this post called “2 days of why?” great question!

because, the questions we should be asking are not “what” or “how”, but “why” questions!
Not, “how do you do that,” but “why do you do that?” Not, “What am i going to do in ministry?” but, “Why am i going to do that?”
hope that helps.

now………go……and figure out “WHY?”

peace.