You just had a guest visit your church and you want to help them get connected, now what?  It's simple: FOLLOW UP! Here's how... 1. Get their information

We've tried this through a handful of means, but here's where we've seen the most success.

Every so often a particular piece of Scripture grabs me and dwells deep within my heart for a long season of time. Right now that text is 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. The Apostle Paul writes,

Do you have a vision for something in your life?  You should. In fact you should have a vision for a number of things -  your spiritual life, your marriage and family, your vocation, and your particular area of ministry gifting. My guess is you do have a vision for a all these things, meaning you have some grasp of where things are currently and a hope for where they will be in the future. You see what is and have a picture of what could be.

I've always been oddly interested in the process various pastors use in preparing to preach. Not just the textual work and crafting of the sermon, but specifically their day of preparation. Personally, I've seen over and over how the quality of my preparation directly impacts the quality of my proclamation. My Sunday morning schedule has changed with our facilities, service times, and other factors, but here's my current Sunday morning process for preparing to preach.

Have you ever tweeted something you ended up regretting? Yeah, me too.

Just this past Wednesday night in a moment of frustration I vented via Twitter. By God's grace, my wife saw it within five minutes and graciously corrected both my attitude and my behavior and I quickly pulled the tweet down.

I recently met with a young seminary student hoping to plant a church and he asked me what I thought the biggest challenges in church planting had been.  I rattled off a few things that came to mind, but after giving it more thought I landed on the five most difficult challenges I've faced over these past three years.

Tami and I have been together for over 10 years now and we've been married for almost seven of those years. Outside my salvation, she is the greatest gift God has given me and by His grace I can say that I love and enjoy her more now than I ever have before. Over these last ten years I've learned many things. One thing in particular never ceases to amaze me, namely that I don't always understand her. She thinks differently than I do, she responds differently than I do, and she feels differently than I do about many things. This is both a blessing and a challenge.

Redemption Bible Church is designed around a straitforward and strategic process meant to move people into what we believe are the essential rhythms of discipleship - Worship. Community. Mission.  For us, this means we have one program assigned to each of these rhythms - Worship Gatherings. Community Groups. Missional Teams. No men's ministry. No women's ministry. No Awana. No singles ministry. No grown men who read comic books living at home into their 40's working at that creepy store in the mall that sells Dungeon and Dragons figurines ministry, either...just in case you were wondering.

While there is no shortage of things, even good things, churches CAN do, there is only a small number of things churches MUST do. We've opted to only do the things we must do. Here are five reasons why.

We've all done it. We've all compared ourselves to someone else at some point in our lives - other Christians, other pastors, other parents, other husbands, other wives, other students, other men, other women...the list goes on and on. We compare ourselves to everyone around morally, spiritually, intellectually, and physically.

Though it's common place in our lives, our constant comparison is killing us. NOTHING good comes from comparing ourselves to anyone else. Think about it...comparison kills you because it inevitably leads to one of two places...

Being a pastor involves a vast number of meetings. Pastoral counseling, church discipline, membership interviews, and meetings with other area pastors all consume a tremendous portion of a pastor's time. In addition to all the meetings already mentioned, the pastoral teams of each local church meet together on a regular basis. Growing up in the Church, I know that not all these meetings are created equal.

At Redemption we celebrate the sacrament of communion nearly every week. We do this because it puts the sacrificial work of Jesus in our place at the very center of every worship gathering. One of the potential dangers for a church that celebrates communion each week is that without great care it can become a religious formality - one of those this we do because "that's what we always do." Regardless of how often we take communion, it ought always to be taken seriously. It's not a game. It is not a sad expression of worship, but a serious one. In 1 Corinthians 11:27 the Apostle Paul warns in writing, "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord."

So the question is, how can we take this important expression of worship seriously and properly prepare our hearts for it? Here are the four steps I encouraged our church family in yesterday:

Four years ago I instituted a semi-regular retreat day into my schedule for the purpose of prayer, fasting, and personal planning. Few things have grown and blessed my soul, my family, and my ministry like regularly withdrawing to engage with Jesus in this way. This practice started for me when I heard another pastor at a conference mention that he took a regular retreat day as one of his spiritual rhythms, so I decided to give it a shot. It was uncomfortable early on, as I didn't really know what I was doing and didn't have any real plan. Some of my retreat days were fruitful and some of them were, quite frankly, awful.

I hate to see my kids suffer. Ever since Ava and Ryder were born, some of my least favorite memories have been taking them to the pediatrician for their regular check ups and the dreaded...SHOTS! Even though they couldn't talk when they were infants, they would look up at me with that confused and pained expression that asked, "Why are you allowing me to experience this pain?" The answer, of course is, "Because it's for your good. I know it hurts and I know you don't understand, but trust me, it's for your good."

But, if I'm honest, the reason I hate it when my kids suffer has less to do with them and more to do with me.

Only God can cause growth and I believe God is sovereign over both the means (particular strategies) and the end (growth). I don't believe that any strategy is a magic formula for numeric growth, and if that's what you're looking for you should revisit your motives and reconsider your readiness to plant a church. We plant the gospel, not a strategy. A strategy is merely the means by which we plant the gospel in our various neighborhoods, communities, and cities.

As we labor to this end, I believe these three essentials are necessary for all church plants regardless of context (hence the term, essential). The way you work them out and what they look like may be dictated by your context, but the necessity of them remains. Here are the three essential means God has used to grow Redemption these past 3 years:

It seems like every church has "that guy". He's the guy who does not serve, does not give, does not want to become a member, and does not contribute in any way, but has an opinion about EVERYTHING.

- The pastor doesn't preach right.

- The music is too loud.

- The staff doesn't communicate correctly.

- Small groups should run differently.

But...

It had been a frustrating few months. I'd started a new position as a worship pastor at an existing church and thus inherited a group of 15 musicians with little talent and lots of attitude (a wonderful combination - is my sarcasm coming through clearly enough?).

One guy in particular was especially difficult. It was discouraging to lead him and he was demanding in his desire to have things “his way.” After one of many phone calls spent trying to get him heading in a healthy direction, I was particularly frustrated and brought this frustration to God in prayer. It went something like this...

"So, I know you preach on Sunday, but what do you do the rest of the week?"

If you're a pastor than you've been asked this question on multiple occasions. Is it just me, or does it seem that people only ask this question on the particularly hard weeks when almost anything sounds better than writing another sermon, walking through another crisis, or watching yet another person ignore the clear counsel of God's Word and thus shipwreck their life? In truth, while pastoral ministry is (in my biased opinion) the most amazing job on the planet, it is also one of the most difficult.

Redemption is what we refer to as "feedback rich environment." Because we believe everything can always be better and because D3 Leadership is so central to our leadership culture, we are constantly giving and receiving feedback regarding everything we do. When feedback is critical in nature it never feels good, but for some people feedback equals failure.

My kids are two of the great evidences of God's grace toward me. My daughter, Ava is 3 1/2 and my son, Ryder is 1 1/2. If you have kids then you know that parenting is both a blessing and a burden. Kids (much like adults) can be selfish, draining, and difficult. Kids do not always listen and often have strong wills of their own (i.e. Ava is currently crying in her bed as I write because she doesn't want to go to bed...we do this every night -  is the crying really necessary?)

As my kids get older I continue to learn one lesson above the rest: