S.A.L.T. Meeting

What we wanted to do is to talk for a few minutes this morning about what has God taught us in the last year, and I'd like to hear from some of you on that, and then we're also going to talk about what we think the Lord is saying to us about the new year. Why is it that everything happens on the same day around here? Because I know what I'm going to hear, I'm going to hear, well, you know, I was at the work day, I didn't know, but I was at the choir practice, and somebody needs to organize this stuff, right? Well, quite honestly, what we try to do is put it all on the same day so you don't have to come out more than one Saturday, but it seems to be somewhat in competition with everything. Lessons, these are my observations, I really do want to hear some of yours, but number one, the thing that I learned about last year, and I hope you can write these down and think about them, I guess the number one lesson I feel like we learned is that the Lord can be trusted. Amen? I don't know how many times in 1994 I wondered when God was going to come through, and He did. He came through again and again, He came through for us when we faced opposition, when we were told we couldn't do this, that the school board wouldn't let us do that, I don't know how many times I walked into a meeting when someone said, well, this is a problem, and I don't know how we're going to get around it, and the Lord did. I want to say very clearly, can you maybe mark for your own life that whatever you're facing right now, the Lord can be trusted? I want you to know that every time I walk in this building, it says to me about my own needs, the Lord can be trusted. Someone told me the other day that they're facing the most number of obstacles personally that they've ever known in their life, and they're trying to get a new business going, and they keep hitting walls, and people saying no, and I said to them, well, walk in the building and just be reminded, the Lord can be trusted, He's not going to fail you nor forsake you. It's so important. The second thing I learned was this, transition is a time of sifting. You know, if you do a study in the Old Testament about when the children of Israel left Egypt and moved into the Promised Land, what happened in those 40 years? A lot of people died, didn't they? Serious sifting was going on, and transition is a time when the things that were secure are no longer there. It's a time when the things that you had once kind of counted on to be those bedrocks where you could put your roots down, and the events and or meetings that were important to you, a lot of that stuff was taken away, and people who were not connected in a group fashion or whatever, found that lots of those people have gone. They've just kind of been sifted out and they've gone to other places, and some have gone nowhere, and you know, it's painful in a lot of ways, but transition is always that kind of way. And again, for your own life, folks, remember, transition is a time when your character is being tested. Our character was tested as a church last year, no doubt about it. And I want to say, praise the Lord, you passed the test and we as a church survived the transition. Pastor Scott needs a gold sheath here, someone help him out, so he's on, thanks John. Number three, I learned last year that relationships don't just happen, they've got to be cultivated. How many of you are married? Okay, how many of you have a really, really close friend, other than your spouse? And if you're not married, you have friends, you know, those relationships you can withdraw, withdraw, withdraw, but if you don't deposit, pretty soon what happens to the bank account? It's empty, and I discovered this last year that relationships have to be cultivated or you can end up having nothing there to draw upon when you need to. Can I say here at North Way, I think I learned in 1994 that mutual, you might want to write this down underneath that particular line, mutual care is still a goal more than it is a reality. We still have a long way to go. We're caring for one another and not having someone assigned to care for us. And that's what 94 taught me. Got to keep working on that. Number four, people without purpose will perish. I don't mean that they'll necessarily perish from God, but I do mean that I believe that they'll disappear. You can only sit there so long, some of you even this morning in your body language are telling me you're perishing. What am I doing here? If you don't have a purpose, if you don't own something of what God's called you to do, you eventually can't hang on anymore, because we're created to want to make a difference. Lots of folks that didn't have a place to plug in and didn't have a sense of ownership or responsibility. The whole thing of Ephesians 4, which is the founding passage of our church, Ephesians 4, 11-16, was that the fivefold gifts were given to equip the saints for the work of ministry. Why? Because ministry is what fulfills you, gives you a sense of purposefulness in the body. And without it, people perish. That's also why we... I learned this because I learned the folks that were actively moving in a sense of ownership have flourished. It was a great year. The ones that didn't have, again, drifted or, in some cases, are sort of on hold. And that's okay. Maybe they're just getting refreshed. Maybe they're dormant like the trees right now. And maybe they'll be reignited, which would be great. Number five, to move ahead will take great devotion. This is one that I don't know how to say softly or easily. I think it's... I've discovered, I've shared with our staff and our elders a number of times. I don't know if I've mentioned it. Being in here, people said, does this feel like home? Absolutely. I feel very comfortable here. But I also have to tell you that the ministry here requires a lot more of us. It's a whole new level of devotion required to the things of the Spirit, to prayer. To me, it's a whole other issue, a whole other level of learning to seek the Lord in a way for His Spirit to move and take care of things. I also have to say, devotion to our vision and to our call is also going to take another level. Right down Acts 2, 42 through 46, Bill taught at the last Home Group Leaders meeting on this. The Bible says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the breaking of bread, fellowship, and prayer. The word to be devoted there means to be disciplined with a purpose. It's what it's going to take. If we're to see the Lord use, as we all believe He wants to, this ministry to touch lives, it's going to take another level of devotion. Some of us are tired. I don't know if I can retool. I've played my season and I need to go on strike for a year, increase my salary or something. Well, bless you. We'll believe the Lord with you, but we all need to see that devotion restored and trust turned up for many of us. So those five things, those are the things that stand out in my mind and I ran it by some of the staff and basically confirmed. The Lord can be trusted. Transition is a time of sifting. Put them all up, please, Donna. Relationships must be cultivated. People without purpose will perish. And to move ahead is going to take great devotion. We'll stay stagnant if we can't come to terms with that last one, I kind of believe. Now, I'd like to hear from a couple of you. In fact, let's do it this way. Why don't you slide over a couple of chairs one way or another and you tell somebody face to face, what was the greatest lesson you learned in 1994? Looking back in your role as a leader or a servant, what's the greatest lesson you learned? Maybe it's not even related to ministry, but slide down to a couple of seats and if you need to go across the aisle, take about two minutes and say, well, I learned this in 1994. Go ahead. Turn around and do what you need to do. Tell someone, I learned this. Please make sure if you're leaving with a choir, please make sure you sign the clipboard so I know you were here so we can communicate with you again. Okay, thanks. All right. If we can encourage each other or support each other right now, I'd like to have a couple of us share that. Why don't you come and share what the person told you they learned? No, don't. I'd like to have a couple of you just come up and share. What did you learn? Dennis is good. Come on up. I took a year's leave of absence, a sabbatical as an elder, and I think I've learned two things. One is it's easy to get so wrapped up in ministry that you miss God. And conversely, when you're out of ministry, just like you were sharing, it's real easy to get lazy and kind of bypass God. And I've gone through both of those in the last year, and out of it I've come to recognize that we need to be in ministry, we need to recognize that that's number two, and our relationship with God is number one, and that gives us the strength to continue on there. So somehow it's finding, here's that word, that balance, isn't it? I really think so, yeah. Right. And it's a challenge. Thanks, Dennis. That's good. Okay. Appreciate that. It's okay. No, you have to turn around. I'm sorry. I work with singles, but I also work with a program called Second Generations, and it's a new program. With the Generations program, we also have a constant kids, and this is for the teenagers, and it's new. And it's really neat. We started in January, sort of what's it called, on a wing and a prayer, where you don't really know what you're doing, but you just go in there and say, okay, God. And it's been really neat to see how God's worked, because we would just sort of pray about it, we'd look at our own experiences and sort of do the teaching programs, sort of what we've had experiences of. And it's just blown me away, because we went to a training program in October, and here, a lot of what we're supposed to be doing, God's already had us do. And so the training was sort of like an affirmation of God's blessing, His divine providence, because now we're starting up this program with the official paperwork and stuff, but we've already been sort of doing it. And it's just been really neat, because I can remember walking in for the first couple months going, oh! And now it's like, I walk in and, no, these are my kids. And God's just done so many neat things. And that is wonderful. You meet with them on Monday nights? These are teenagers who are, they just need extra TLC to help them find their place, and they're not wandering. I mean, it's a neat ministry. It's still relatively small, but it has a good beginning. So that's great. Thanks very much. Okay. All right. One more. One more lesson learned by 1994. Mark. I think what I learned in 1994 is that the Lord wants to use each one of us. I'm not good at standing up here, but we're not going to receive all the training that we need to help people that are out there that need it. But a lot of them don't want answers. They just want someone to go through it with them. So as like a home group leader, I'm learning that if I'm willing to go through these different situations with people in my life, they'll find the answers. The Lord will provide the answers. We just have to be faithful to be a servant. Very good. Anyone else? I'll give another minute. These are helpful things. I wasn't going to share anything because I wanted to give some of you an opportunity, but the thing that I've really been struck with is that seeds planted by faith in former years have blossomed for us in 1994. And I see that in, for example, my children, especially Richard, who I believe really has a call of God on his heart to be a pastor. And he's taking care of teenagers and discipling young kids, and he's got a heart for God, and he prays, and he studies, and he worships. And it's wonderful to see that in a child. And I'm surprised that it's in my family. I'm really surprised that it's in my family. And in my business, God has taken our company to a new level, and we've been praying for 10, 12 years to finally get it to a point where I would work less, be able to be in ministry more, and have a business that can produce income, even if you're not there. And that's happening now. So I just want to encourage you that when you've prayed for things and you've not seen the breakthrough, sometimes it takes time. But those seeds will blossom if they've been planted by faith. Amen. Maybe 95 will be the year of blossoming for some of us. I'd like each of the pastors that are here to just give you a 60-second or two-minute, at the most, synopsis of 94, where we are at the end of 94, as you see it. So I guess we'll start at first base and go around, and Scott, if you'll... Okay. If I could, I'm going to take my two minutes and teach you a little tool, an analogy that our ministries at the front door learned, and I'd like all of you to catch hold of. We're seeing about 30 new families a week, on the average, come in our front doors that we're aware of. And I just want to ask all of you to be leading by example with us in reaching out to people. I had a visit from a stranger about a month ago who came up to one of our greeters, and he said, can you tell me where the coffee and donut area is? And the greeter's response out here in the lobby was, yeah, go right down there to the end of the hall, make a right, make a left, and you'll be right there. Well, he started down, then he turned, he swung around, went back to the greeter and he said, you just gave me a K-mark greeting. And the greeter looked at him oddly and said, what you just did, I appreciate it, but do you realize you missed an opportunity to get to know me, to talk to me, to help me, to go out of your way for me? He said, at K-mark they point, at Walmart they escort. This happened to be a visiting training pastor from another state who met with me the next day. He was a plant. Actually, Scott sent him in. It was not at all. And it was a wonderful illustration that helped me, that is helping me to help our servants understand that all of us have to be responsible to look to the eyes and the body language of people that God is sending to us now and think in terms of how can I give them at least a Walmart greeting, certainly not a K-mark greeting caliber or below. But if you think about that, where do you want to go? You want to go to a place where you're treated like you're valuable. This doesn't say value. Coming alongside people, taking just a few seconds or a few minutes if the door opens to get acquainted with them and walk with them will mean unbelievable things to them. And it will say what we really have in our hearts, which is I love you, I care about you, I want to be a part of your life. All of us can do that. I want to ask all of you to set that same tone. And we saw catching this with 150 or so, actually about 60 of the 150 or so servant corps folks a week ago literally transformed the Visitor's Center because our greeters and North Way Finders and Information Center folks and ushers and deacons are all catching the vision that you can look for those eyes, connect, escort, and connect again. And people are beginning to fill our Visitor's Center out there because of it. When we don't think in those terms, people walk right by us, they'll come right in the building, they'll go right out of the building, and they'll never come back. So I appreciate your help. One of the things that we're beginning to communicate in some of the teaching that we're doing with the Home Group leaders is that functional membership at North Way, when we talk about membership at North Way, we're not just talking about signing a card and saying this is my home, but we're saying that to be a member really means functionally that you're going to be getting involved in a small group at some point along your journey into life at North Way. North Way is a church that's becoming small groups. That's who we are. And since there are so many new people coming through the doors, there is a compelling need right now, probably one of our greatest needs right now is for new leaders. The challenge is that it's a challenge that I've taken up, not just me, but all of us as a staff has taken up, and I would like to challenge you today to own that calling to identify leaders within our body. It's one thing if five pastors are saying we need leaders. It's another thing if 150 leaders are saying we need leaders. And Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, verse 2, he said, Heard from me in the presence of faithful witnesses the same you entrust that to other faithful men who will be able to teach others. And what Paul identified in that verse was four generations of leadership, all at every level asking the question, who is my Timothy? Who is that person that's called alongside me that I'm called to raise up and train in leadership? And we're doing this in the small group ministry, and I would just challenge you today in your role as a leader in your ministry, whatever that may be, is to be asking the question, who is my Timothy? And to keep your eye out for people within Life at North Way who are potential leaders and challenge them to find a place of leadership in ministry. And one of the places we need leaders, there's a clarion call for leaders right now, is in small group ministry. One of the things that I've heard consistently here, and I've been here since 1981, is that we're to equip the saints for the work of ministry. And at Third Base, and in the paradigm, each one of us have a role and a purpose in each other's lives, and that's to help us to grow in Christ, to mature in Christ, and that we find that the greatest maturing is when we serve another, when we can put the application of what we learn into practice, when the Word of God and what we're studying, we can put into another's life, when we can pray for another, when we can comfort and encourage others. And at Third Base, we have a motto, and that's to find a ministry that you do well and that you love to do for God. And we want to help everyone in the body find that place where God's been shaping them that has said, this is the place I've called you to. This is the place where you're to serve. We believe that everybody here that comes the North Way is here for a purpose, and they fit in. Now, all of us have servant's hearts, and we all serve in the areas that have needs, but there is a ministry that God has for each one. So our desire for 95, and our goal is to raise awareness of that in the Pathways office, in Room 127, where you're going to be hearing more about ministry. You'll be seeing a lot more around the building, focusing on ministry, all your efforts that you serve others in with the servant heart of Christ. So this is the year of awareness for ministry for us, and we're hoping to see things in front of you in many ways for the new year. So be looking for those things. Just before you go, John, a little test here, folks. Put up your hand if you know where the Ministry Pathways office is. All right, we're doing pretty well. About 75%. If you don't know, you just got to go out that door. Let me show you. No. Okay, thanks. All right. Coach Jeff, I think I could sum up all of 94 by the way I'm dressed. It was a busy year. I don't know if it was for you, but for most everybody, every time I said, how has 94 been for you, the word busy comes up in that. And for each one of the ministries which I'm involved in, which would be the children's ministry, the youth ministry, and the men's ministry, all of those ministries I think need to understand that and then address it. If the world's busy out there, then what do we need to not be busy? We need to be able to provide something that remarkably and distinctively says something different where you can get out of that rat race and come in here and be a rat that worships. But the ministries that I have been involved in, that's what I have seen. As people have come into this place, and even when we were at Marshall, families with children, there was something refreshing that spoke to them that said this place is different. The people here are different. And I think that I was remembering all of this when I was interviewing a young man who was interested in our youth pastor position. And you know what he said to me? He said, so Jeff, what are the next five years going to hold? I went, oh gosh. That made me tired just to think about it. But I thought about that. I thought we have put so much energy to get here, and now we need to be saying, God, what are the next five years going to hold? And in that regard, I can tell you that God is blessing in our young people in this church in spite of whatever obstacles they may be facing, especially in our teenagers without a youth pastor right now. Continue to pray in that direction, but yet God is doing something within them and beginning to strengthen something within them, preparing them for what he's going to bring in the way of youth pastors. And then lastly, in our men's ministry, we are beginning to get our promise keeper groups up and going. And more and more of those are beginning to form. Remember those also. They're important for men and their relationships with each other. And then the only other thing that I'm involved in is something that I must say that I was rather disappointed in 1994, and that was in our personal evangelism as a church. And as I looked back over 94, I thought it was not anything to be extremely proud of, but I'm beginning to see that people are understanding and as they're coming through the course which I'm teaching, which is really based out of personally what I have learned in the last couple of years of my own life in how to impact people with the gospel. I've been finding people catching that excitement again. Last week, somebody had five or six people from their neighborhood here in children's ministry. I had five brand new families all from one person's neighborhood because they reached out to five families and they all came one Sunday. That was exciting. There's a fine balance again to use Dennis's word between giving you opportunity to experience things and becoming a burden. That seems to be a moving target in our culture in terms of where you are in life. Some of you have your kids all gone and raised and hey, no big deal for you to have three or four nights or days when you're available. Others have all of your kids at home or you're doing two jobs. Those things, it's different for everyone. We try to find that balance in what we expect and what we encourage of you. It's not easy because some of you let us know when you're feeling too pushed and others say you just keep looking for opportunities. I hope you understand that. When we say we have a Wednesday night and a Friday night, it doesn't mean you have to but it may be something that is just right for where you are in your life right now. I want to maybe just bring us toward the end of this time by looking at 95 and I want to give you what I think are five words from the Lord about that. Here we go. The blue sheets, we all have them? The first three words connect, connect, connect. Do you know that having a small group's ministry is only necessary because we don't connect naturally? We try to facilitate that. We try to help that along. But in the end, we've got to get a hold of this. I want to say for two reasons. Number one, because it will be a blessing to the people that were able to connect. I was with an individual who had formerly been in pastoral ministry and that's one reason why I spent time with him. And when I heard him say how he got connected and how important that had been in his place in life, it was an encouragement to me because it really met him where he and his wife had been hurt and kind of discarded in ministry and all that stuff. It was such an encouragement to hear him say I was connected and loved and blessed. But you know what? It also blesses us. How many of you know there's something in you that resonates when you're able to help someone feel loved and cared for? It's really important. And so, Scott gave you one little tiny way that those things happen. But folks, can I encourage you? There's a few things. The proactivity level at North Way of making connections is pretty... It's hard to find. Usually, it's almost like we have to have an assignment sheet instead of making a point of it. And you know what? Wednesdays and Sundays are when it happens pretty much because that's when we're here. Things like coming a little bit early and making some effort. Becoming part of the paradigm and sitting in with someone that you've brought so that they can make that connection. It's all an investment. I know that. But we're like a big puzzle here. And how many of you know a piece of a puzzle that's outside the frame isn't going to matter much? When does it matter? When it's been connected. And so 95, I don't know how many different ways we're going to say it and try to model it and help you do it, but it's all about connections. Because one thing that looms in the back of my head that I've read about in a lot of different churches is we can have a wonderful, and the terminology you may not like, but a wonderful front door. In other words, where people are coming in to hear the Word of God and to experience worship. But a big back door where they come for a while and they don't get connected so they leave. Or people that have been here for a while, in some cases years, they leave because they're not connected. That doesn't build the Kingdom of God, folks. That makes you a revolving door. How many of you want to be, I don't want to be part of a revolving door church. I don't think that, that's not our mission. Number two, commit to pursue the Holy Spirit's empowering. I think we've just started to touch that whole area again on Wednesday nights. And we really want to do that. The Lord has made it real clear. Let's be open to the Holy Spirit's movement. Let's spend time in front of Him on our faces. Let's be hungry for the Spirit of God to empower us afresh. And I want to commit to that. So we're going to make decisions that will commit us on that course to let the Spirit move in freedom and to refresh those of us who've been burdened a little bit or as Jeff was saying, kind of harried. That's why we call these Wednesday nights times of refreshing where the Spirit of God is moving. And that's not just Wednesday nights, but that's a big part of it for me. Number three, create opportunity for focused and dynamic corporate prayer. One of the biggest casualties of our transition was the opportunity to have corporate prayer because we didn't have a place to have it other than the office. And now we have been restored in that. And I really am anxious to get that moving. I believe that that's what's going to keep us vital. Interestingly, as I've heard of places where God's moved in the Spirit to bring about quote, revival. It's almost always been in response to people who've just set about to pray about it. And when God's done miraculous things to provide financially or to provide resources or to provide leaders or whatever it is, it's because people have gotten serious about praying about it. And again, it's a thing that we have to give opportunity, not to put guilt, but to give opportunity for us to move together. Number four, this one excites me, captivate our culture with life transforming truth. One thing I love about us is that people don't know what to do with us. You know that? Jack had to go back out to the work day I guess, but I wish he could hear how much difficulty people are having in categorizing us. Now, it can work against us and I've heard lots of people say, well, I still don't know what a community is. Is it a church or isn't it? I guess I have a little difficulty driving by here and wondering if this is a church or not, but some people do. But at the grassroots level, the whole issue of what's the message here? Well, folks, we have a privilege. I mean, where else are people going to hear about something that's going to really change the trajectory of their lives? And one of the things that I do have to say encourages me a whole lot are the number of people that through you or directly through the mail or in an encounter say, you know, when I, how many of you were here for the baptism? Good number of you. Wasn't that encouraging to you to hear the number of people say, I heard the word of God or I discovered Christ or I was, you know, I was real religious but I found a relationship. How? Because we captivate the word of God, the truth of God captivated their hearts. And we, I am looking forward to the way that the Lord is going to use us and not just from the platform and preaching but also in our men's ministry. Last week we used a little, just a little diagram of a dashboard. And a lot of you said, you know, every time I get in my car I see that thing and I think, oh my spiritual life, you know, I'm overheating or my RPMs are out of control. See, we can captivate. The human mind is always, you know, all this information, super highway stuff, it's always being pulled. But God captivates our hearts through the preaching and the declaring and the sharing of his word. Number five, to challenge our faith by ownership of our ministries. What do I mean by that? Well, I think we've heard it said but the people that I share with here at North Way that I sense are just fulfilled and are excited about trusting God in new ways, they're the ones who just simply, they know where they're called to fit. Maybe not where they were five years ago, maybe a different place. But they're like Heather. I mean, it's no longer like a burden to show up and do what you gotta do. They can't wait. And they just can't wait. And they look for opportunities and they're anxious to get there. And it's not a burden. They don't feel like you're imposing on them when they give an opportunity to minister. Because they're doing it unto the Lord. And it challenges our faith to see that. I think as Dan was saying, sometimes that seed takes a while to blossom. How many of you are in a ministry right now that you still feel like the seeds are underground? Really? And how many of you are in a time when you're starting to see it really blossom? Most of you? I would think. That's why you're here. You wanna know why a lot of people aren't here? That's right. For them, they're just doing the labor of it probably. It's not fulfilling yet. So put them all up again please, those five. This is guiding directives. In other words, I'm gonna use this as a screen over everything that's going on. Are people being connected? And we're gonna measure that. Are we giving place to the Holy Spirit and His empowering? Are we creating new opportunities for focused and dynamic corporate prayer? And I hope you have some things for you on that at our next SALT meeting. Are we captivating our culture with life transforming truth? And are we challenging our faith? Now as I did a little bit ago, I wanna give you an opportunity to share with somebody what guiding directive... Just leave them up for a second, Donna, please. Which of these five raises your pulse a little bit? And if none of those, then what does? I mean, what is God saying to you for 95? So again, in twos and threes, just whip your chairs around or stand up. In fact, why don't we all just stand up? Might be healthier. We got six minutes left. Spend the next three sharing. All right, this is what's getting... If you wanna change partners, you can do it. I don't wanna dance with you again. All right. We're getting near the home stretch here, so include everyone. All right, let's just take another 30 seconds and then be seated and we're gonna wrap up here. Anyone else wanna jump in real quickly and tell us what directive you're looking at? Anything... Your opportunity to encourage or... Share with another? Larry, McAdams, can you give a...