Check out my new site at www.daveharder.ca and the reasons why I have changed to wordpress.
February 24, 2011
February 22, 2011
February 18, 2011
The Great Worship Giveaway!
Finally a new new church presentation software has hit the street. And being a pastor who loves technology I can get excited about this stuff and in reality I have to say ITS ABOUT TIME! Thanks Proclaim!
Well, to celebrate the coming release of their software, Proclaim just launched “The Great Worship Resource Giveaway.” They’re giving away more than $25,000 in worship resources to well over 100 winners.
Compared to most giveaways, those are some pretty good odds!
the Proclaim launch, told me they wanted the giveaway to mirror what the software is all about—”giving incredible tools to churches everywhere so they can create better worship services.”
That doesn’t sound like hype to me. Check out these sweet prizes!
- A professionally created website, hosted free for a year from Cloversites.com
- One year of expert video and audio podcasting (apparently a team of A/V professionals actually come to your church and set this up!)
- $100s in gift cards for worship images, music and videos, downloadable music lessons, and more
- An acoustic guitar from Lunar Guitars
- Tickets to some of the premier worship leader and music conferences
- Much more!
It’s really easy to enter.
Just watch the video at Proclaimonline.com. At the end there is a list of ways to enter the giveaway. There are a number of one-time ways to enter and a coupleways to enter every day!
February 15, 2011
Exciting Trends
1. Churches Working Together to Identify and Equip New Church Planters
One of the trends that I am absolutely loving is the willingness of churches to cross denominational and even theological lines and begin to work with each other. Today we are seeing more and more churches partner together and learn from one another in ways that they never have before. BUT that is not the trend, this is the trend and a very exciting one... Churches working together regionally to identify and equip new church planters. I believe this is one of the greatest hopes we have for the advancement of the Gospel. This will be huge for planters because it will not only help provide some of the financial support they need but the relational, emotional and spiritual support the need as well.
What are some of these growing networks? Here are few: Redeemer City to City, New Thing, ARC, ChurchPlanters.com, PLNTD, Vision360, Forge Network, CPC and the ICF Movement. Of course there are countless more and new ones popping up all the time. Two that just started are the Houston Church Planters Network and the Launch Network in Atlanta. Please note that these networks are not trying to be new denominations, but are helping plant churches in the cities they find themselves ministering and their momentum is changing the game. Also note that some effective city networks like what the Mennonite Brethren are doing in Toronto and Vancouver is denominationally based.
I truly believe if the church continues to go down the road of partnership (instead of competing with each other) then we are going to see worldwide movements of God like we’ve never seen or experienced. We can accomplish far more by working together than we ever could alone.
2. Leaders will Pay More Attention to Shorter Time Horizons
I love this idea that came from Will Mancini's on Tony Morgans blog. He says "Everything in the vision and clarity space pushes to shorter horizons as the pace of change accelerates. A mantra that Reggie McNeal coined is “Preparation over planning.” The emphasis on leadership is preparing for the uncertainties of the future, rather than trying to predict them. As a result, answering the question, “Where is God taking us?” requires a 90-day focus and a 1-year horizon of shared storytelling like never before. Will other time horizons be important? Yes they will, but not like the way we used to think about it. Read this post on the Five Horizons of Leadership to glean more."
February 11, 2011
February 08, 2011
Now This Is A Conference!
Greatest idea for a conference yet The Epic Fail Conference! Check out the man behind the conference and the blog post that inspired it.
It is great to see the push back to ministry by the latest book or latest conference. We have lost the point... For those of us in ministry this is a closer reality to what we face and the need to have a space to share openly and honestly and learn from one another... this is the Pastors true need.
Preaching In A Missional Church
We have been processing as a core community what Sundays should look like when a church is focused on mission. The tendency is to drift into what every other Sunday service across the city looks like. Intro - 4 songs - Offering/Announcements - Message - Closing Song. Ya you may see a little different flavour from church to church but you get my point. This last Sunday I saw what it can look like when everyone shares out of their gifting and current reality. God is doing something deep in peoples hearts and we need to give spaces to equip, train, and release them to "preach" wherever they find themselves. What was spoken on Sunday could also be spoken to work mates, friends, and discussed at the pub. Thats missional preaching.
Here is a brilliant paper, “Preaching in the Missional Church” by Ervin R. Stutzman, a professor of homiletics atEastern Mennonite Seminary.
Quick Aside: If you want to get a truly helpful understanding of what missional is all about, listen to Anabaptists!
In the paper he unpacks a number of distinctives of a missionally-shaped (Post-Christendom) vision of preaching and also addresses the need for new methods of training these sorts of preachers which we are attempting in KLMS.
Review: Launching Missional Communities
I mentioned this resource in a previous post and then came across this great review by JR Rozko’s. I would encourage everyone who is planting a church with a more missional model or transitioning a church to mission to take a look at this very practical field guide. Launching Missional Communities: A Field Guide . Also don't miss reading Mike's response to the only criticism JR addresses which is linked later in the post.
"I should probably say upfront that I have a ton of 3DM (the training network behind this book) friends. I love them, their hearts, and their ministries, so as I come to this book, I’m already biased in favor of it.
The easiest thing to say about this book is that it’s practical. While it’s easy, even fun, to read, it almost can be treated more like a resource manual than a book. It doesn’t need to be read straight through and it’s easy to reference bits and pieces depending on your interests.
Before diving into all the good stuff I want to say, let me go ahead and get my one major criticism out of the way. There is a small chapter entitled, “Attractional vs. Missional” in which the authors attempt to argue that we need both. My opinion, however, is that the argument fails on both theological and analogical fronts. They use the pre-Reformation phenomenon of Roman model churches (if you build it they will come) and Celtic model churches (more outward focused) to suggest that we need attractional and missional kinds of churches playing off of one another. The analogical problem here is that what is generally meant today by attractional and missional does not at all correspond to the realities and circumstances in which these models of churches existed. As for the theological problem, I can probably best articulate that by sharing the last sentences of the chapter and my notes in the margin.
The quote…
We just need to understand what Attractional does well and do it.
We need to understand what Missional does well and do it.
My notes…
Impossible – attractional and missional churches are such because they have divergent understandings of basic Christian doctrines. What we need is a theologically robust understanding the relationship between the the Missio Dei, the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and the Church. This will lead us not to the ‘best’ of these two models, but to a cohesive vision of a missional ecclesiology. This is the great error of ‘AND’ thinking; you never get to core issues because you spend all your time trying to artificially hold incompatible things together.
The saddest part of this is that the underlying genius of the book actually does this work. It undercuts the errant theology and philosophy driving attractional churches. I just wish they had been more direct in stating it.
UPDATE: Be sure to check this post Mike Breen offered in response.
OK, on to the far more substantive praise.
The authors fully communicate their heart for the life and ministry of local churches in their various forms. They offer not just a proposal, but a methodical plan for churches of any size (though it seems pretty obvious that they have in mind mainly new, smaller communities and then more established larger communities in mind) and kind to begin to incorporate missional communities into the life of their larger church community.
Discipleship, leadership and mission are the driving themes of both the book and the entire philosophy of missional communities. To get the point of the book, you have to understand that from the author’s perspective, the task of the church is discipleship – period – the end. And they are right. You also have to embrace the idea that the replication of leaders is imperative to the larger task of discipleship. If you don’t equip and empower leaders, you can kiss your changes of exponential discipleship bye-bye. Again, I’m totally with them here. Finally, mission is the context in which leaders are equipped and disciples are formed. Amen! If you can embrace and own these three things, then you’ll love this book and what it offers.
A few final things. I deeply appreciate that they didn’t skip over the tough (practical) issues like kids, schedules, and finances. they address these things as only those who’ve lived through the ins and outs of the details could. They also interspersed quotes and stories from those who have gone through their 3DM training and others who have implemented missional communities (or some derivation thereof) into their larger church context.
The guys behind 3DM are doing a good work and the people who contributed stories to the book are the ultimate testimony of that. I highly recommend you pick up a copy or two to read through with a group that’s interested in the whole idea of missional communities – you won’t find a better practical guide for sure."
February 04, 2011
February 02, 2011
January 31, 2011
Margin - I don't have enough...
Not sure where you are at with the whole busy thing but I am finding I have less and less margin in my life for the things that "seem" really important. Like staying fit, discussing a financial plan with your wife (Yes our "Together" group tackled both of these last week), or just fun things like skating on the canal. (I hate at the end of every winter saying "we should have done that more often")
Then I came across this quote
Somewhere we know that without a lonely place our lives are in danger. Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, without distance closeness cannot cure. Somewhere we know that without a lonely place our actions quickly become empty gestures. The careful balance between silence and words, withdrawal and involvement, distance and closeness, solitude and community forms the basis of Christian life and should therefore be the subjects of our most personal attention. Let us therefore look somewhat closer, first at our life in action, and at our life in solitude.
Out of Solitude, Henri Nouwen
I had an incredible moment last week where it was just me and Jesus and it was so life giving. I know when I do give God those spaces my life has margin again. So much of busyness is looking for security and significance from everywhere else but Jesus. I long to learn to embrace moments that are just me and my God, to live a life with space to breathe, recharge, dream, and connect, to revel in the juxtaposition between solitude and community, to be better acquainted with that which is known somewhere.
All You Need to Know About Missional Community
You know that feeling when you find that resource that puts into words all the thoughts, ideas, strategies you had and you are so grateful someone else wrote it down. This is how I feel about Mike Breen's work Launching Missional Communities: A Field Guide. It is years of ministry and his apostolic genius distilled into one manual. The story of St. Thomas Crookes in Sheffield where Mike was the pastor for a number of years is mind blowing and his ministry 3DM will be a huge help to churches making the shift to becoming more missional or church plants that are desiring more of a missional model.
One of the things Mike talks about a lot in regards to Missional Communities is that they need to be balanced in the way that Jesus’ life was balanced. He had three definitive dimensions to his life, and so with MCs, we should have the same dimensions. UP: time spent focusing on God IN: time spent focusing on others in the body OUT: time spent focusing on those who don’t know Jesus yet
If this is done well in the context of a spiritual extended family on mission together (groups of 20-40), the community, mission and discipleship that occurs through God’s Spirit is stunning.
January 24, 2011
The Church United
In a response to the week of Christian Prayer and Unity the Glebe (the name of the neighbourhood our church is located) ministerial decided the best way to show unity was to do a joint service together. And since our service is in the evening we were asked to be the hosts. I was honoured by the opportunity to host the churches in our community.
It was such a blessing to be together with St Matthews Anglican, Ecclesiax, 4th St Baptist, St James United, and St Giles Presbyterian. God is honoured by our togetherness under Christ and everyone who attended was blessed.
The evening consisted of each Pastor praying in their tradition, which was very rich and meaningful. I love how we can all be so diverse and in unity celebrate that diversity. We prayed for our churches, community, city, nation, and world with responsive worship after each prayer. I left that night filled with faith, tasting what it could look like if a church left their silos behind and joined what God was doing in their neighbourhood and city. God is truly glorified by our togetherness and I was truly blessed being a part of it.
The offering last night went to support the 4th Street Food Bank. Lets continue our journey of togetherness and in our unity may Christ be glorified.
January 21, 2011
Living Differently - Offense Happens
To not forgive is to let someone rent free space in your head. To forgive is to set someone free and then find out it's you. Rob Bell
At The Journey we are continuing our study of Ephesians and I thought it helpful to post my thoughts on the series living differently. This last Sunday I was amazed by how Paul begins Chapter 4. Ephesians can be broken up into two segments. The first being one of our identity, our position in Christ. The second is, because of the gospel and who you are in Christ this is how you should live. The order is incredibly important! Christian living always follows intimacy with Jesus. The first outflow of a Jesus filled life Paul addresses is this desire to keep peace and fight for unity.
If you take the bible seriously and decide to join a community of Christ followers that do life together at some point you will offend one another. People are different in how they think, communicate, and be real we all have bad days where opinions fly a little faster than they should.
Paul in Ephesians new this was going to be challenging so he tells them to "bear with one another in love" and "fight for unity". It is easy to choose independence and walk away or to stew in your anger but fighting for unity thats a whole other way of living that is not modelled too often in our world. The greatest testimony of Jesus being alive is a people choosing to love one another.
What I know to be true is this:
1. Offence will happen - I tell people in our church "if you stay long enough I will offend you". Others will offend you. It is the choices you make after the offence that matter most.
2. It is not your job to fix everyone - We all can see things in others we want to change. If you are married I know you can relate. We also want everyone to me more like us. What you are saying is I am amazing and if just everyone was like me the world would be a better place... I smell Pride! The reality is people change slow and it is the presence of the Holy Spirit in someones life and their response to his leading that changes them. AND we are all diverse. We need to be patient! Join God with what he is doing in their life.
3. Don't judge motive - When someone offends me I can instantly jump to the unhealthy place of judging motive. The reality is I will never know motive unless I ask and when I ask rarely is someone intentionally trying to hurt me. Most offence was never intended. Which is why Jesus calls us to have mercy based relationships... Believing the best about others.
The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, and his glory is to overlook a transgression.” (Proverbs 19:11)
4. We need to ask "Why am I responding this way?" - Too often when offence comes I blame the person that offended me instead of looking inside and asking the hard question... Why am I responding this way? What in me just got triggered? Often it is the wounds of the past or shame in the present that pushes back in an unhealthy way. Once again its why we need mercy!
5. Don't stay angry - The Bible is real clear on this one. Don't go to bed with anger stewing in your heart. It is amazing how a simple phone call asking "What did you mean by that?" or "Did you know that when you said ____ this is how I took it, What did you mean?"
6. Finally the enemy loves to twist and pervert our words. He is at work to break unity and it is our job to look to Jesus as our example. No matter what we do, he is fighting for relationship with us. Longing for us to be reconciled and restored to the Father and out of that unity with him we will experience the beautiful joy of walking close with others. Be aware that this is a spiritual battle.
Choose to fight for unity today, bearing with one another in love so we can experience His amazing peace.
I can't wait for the next passage, Ephesians 4:11-16 on Grown -Up Christianity.
January 17, 2011
Its All About Story
One of the outcomes of our leaders meeting was a focus more on stories and sharing the
stories of what God is doing in our lives and community. So here is a post from Jonathon Dodson that will hopefully help as we move towards being more story formed!
Good questions are an important way to get real conversation going, but alone, they are not sufficient for substantive community. Knowledge about a person’s life circumstances doesn’t produce community. It is important that we also learn how to sympathize with people when they share their heart. We can do this by striving to understand how they are responding to their circumstances. Are they in doubt, depressed, encouraged, or embittered? We can sympathize with their struggle, just as Jesus sympathizes with us: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15). Try asking these questions: "Are you discouraged? Where do you have doubt?" "That is so difficult. Ugh!" "Does anyone else struggle with that?" "Can we pray for you right now?" Bring up the issue in the next meeting. Once you have tried to sympathize with someone’s story, you have embodied the gospel before speaking the gospel. It’s important that we follow Jesus’ example of gentle sympathy with others instead of trying to “fix” people. Discern the heart Sympathy alone does not offer hope. In order to lead people to hope in their situation, we need to be discerning and wise friends to help them look into their own hearts. The heart is the seat of our longings and decision-making (Proverbs 4:23; Luke 6:45). It governs our responses to our circumstances. What our heart believes, desires, and trusts will determine our response to a situation. To have good gospel conversations, we need to help people discern their heart in their life story. We discern by relying on the Spirit and the Word to see our heart motivations. Be sure to communicate your love and acceptance regardless of their struggle, and make sure they know you have heard their story. Here are some ways to do so: "In that situation I would be tempted to blame my co-worker, what about you guys?" "Is there a subtle lie you might be believing here?" "What do you want most out of the situation? What are you longing for?" "Where do you feel like you were wronged?" "What is most important to you in that moment?" Here are some additional questions to discern idols of the heart (adapted from Counterfeit Gods) "Where are you spending your money?" "Where does your imagination take you? What do you daydream about?" "Where are your emotions uncontrollable? What do you find yourself longing for, angry over, or fearful of? There is your idol." "How do you respond to unanswered prayers or dashed hopes?" The basic three part structure is adapted from David Powlison’s counseling mantra: 1) Listen to Their Story 2) Empathize with Their Story 3) Redemptively Retell Their Story. Listening to others by asking good questions, empathizing with their struggle, and discerning their heart’s desires and beliefs only gets us half-way to good gospel conversation. To bless one another with true, Christ-shaped counsel, we need to reveal the gospel in each other's story. Here are a few ways to lovingly make the gospel-turn in conversation.
Apply the Gospel to your own story
It is important that the conversation-leader be a “lead repenter” when answering heart-penetrating questions. This does not mean you are the first to answer the question; however, you must come to the gathering prepared to share how the Spirit has led you to repentance in your own life. Lead-repenting begins at home in your heart and naturally carries over into how you lead during gatherings. Be bold with your brokenness and invite words of correction and encouragement.
- Confess your own sin & idolatry. Ask for prayer, help, and encouragement in your own life.
- Apply the gospel to yourself. We often become focused on discerning the wounds and cracks in others' hearts and forget to apply the gospel to our own hearts first. Let your community see you applying the healing balm of the gospel to your own wounds. This will dissolve a self-righteous hierarchy, as well as show them how to apply the gospel to their own lives.
- Lead with grace. When revealing the gospel in other people’s story, the goal is not to rebuke publicly, but rather to graciously point them through their circumstances to Christ who is present in their struggle.
Listen well
Listen to a person’s story and re-tell it back to them, but with the gospel of grace in the middle. Your goal is to show how Jesus is better than what their fear, desire, or feelings are about their circumstance. Do it in a way that reveals that Jesus is not a miracle drug, but a crucial and concrete component of their lives. Demonstrate that Jesus is the only key to fit the lock of their problems.
- Say nothing. At times, no words are needed. While talking, a person will often verbally correct his wrong motives and actions. Affirm him in his conclusions and point him to Jesus, who is sufficient for his failures and strong for his successes.
- Graciously expose lies. Ask if there is a lie they are tempted to believe. As sin surfaces, it is very tempting to either shift the blame or dismiss anger, despair, or lust because of difficult circumstances. It is loving to reveal blame-shifting and sin-skirting to guide one another into the joy of the Lord.
Let your community see you applying the healing balm of the gospel to your own wounds.
- Blame-shifting. We are often tempted to lay blame on our circumstances. For instance, we might blame our sexual sin or overeating on the absence of a girlfriend, boyfriend, or spouse. We might explain our anger by saying, “It’s the kids’ fault.” You may be angry or depressed because you aren’t married, so you say: “There are too many married people in this group or church.”
- Sin-skirting. As a community that speaks the truth in love, we have an obligation to not allow one another to skirt sin with moralism or indifference. For example, “Yeah, I’d be angry too,” “It will get better,” or “Don’t be a doormat!”
Delve deeper by asking good questions
Prompt a more meaningful conversation with questions that illicit thoughtful answers:
- How does our passage address your heart issues?
- What alternative promise does Scripture offer us?
- Can you think of any Bible stories, parables, promises, or truths that would help us here?
- How does the gospel address this?
- How does Jesus supplant and replace our idol of success? We know Jesus is better, but how?
Encouragement is key
It is important to acknowledge the work people do in sharing their insights. What grace can you affirm in their life? What victory can you celebrate? What progress have you seen in their faith? By following up with a few encouraging statements, a person is more likely to keep sharing, searching, and seeking God out.
What to do about Sundays?
We had an amazing discussion with our leaders on Thursday night and lots of processing has taken place since then. As a church that is committed to Gospel Communities it is challenging to figure out what Sundays are and what they should become.
Gospel Communities n. and v. 1. Mid-sized groups of people that live out the mission of God together as a family, pursuing the redemption and renewal of a particular community or network of relationships by declaring and demonstrating the gospel in tangible forms.
The issue isn't whether you should have a Sunday Gathering or not the issue is where lies your 'centre of gravity'. The distinctive of the 'GCM model' (for want of a better term) is that the leading edge has to be Gospel Communities on Mission, rather than a Sunday event with preaching. That event is important and is a great front door for many people, but unless a genuine devolution has taken place what you will get is going to be like any other church.
The problem is that our/MY default is to the Sunday event (because it's actually easier and flows better with our consumer lifestyle) so counter balances have to be in place to resist the drift. Thanks to the Journey for helping be my counterbalance.
What I did learn was it all begins with asking a Question. Don't worry if its the right one because the Holy Spirit will help with the navigation. Just ask the question...
January 10, 2011
January 01, 2011
Another Year With No Change
There's really nothing inherently special about the New Year. Every year I ask myself why do so many people gather in NYC to watch a ball drop and get a kiss from some unexpected stranger at midnight. Sure, the calendar turns over to the next year, but it's really only the next day which turns into the next week which eventually turns into another month and so on. We've placed some sort of magical line of demarcation that rolls around on December 31st at 12:00 a.m. It seems that on the other side of that line there's a road that's clear of everything that's on the backside of that line. It's seen as a fresh start, a new beginning, an opportunity. But it ends up feeling like groundhog day. Every year the same resolutions and every year the same results - little to no change.
What we often don't realize is that life is really a fresh start waiting to happen whenever we're ready for it. We're not dictated by the calendar, nor does the calendar sweep the obstructions from our lives when the second hand reaches midnight in the wee and fleeting hours of December. We can choose to move toward something new at any time. But lets make that something new what will change us at the core of who we are. May we discover the GOSPEL afresh this Year.
The gospel gives us the humility (I am a sinner - I don’t have all the answers - I am still learning), yet the confidence (I have received Jesus, accepted his sacrifice and have much to give to people and the city), and the courage (I don’t need peoples approval to feel significant, I don’t need a comfy life to feel secure, I don’t need to be surrounded by people just like me) to love and serve those around me.
The Gospel is not just the way we enter God’s kingdom, but the way we thrive within the kingdom. We are not saved through the Gospel and then forced to maintain our salvation through obedience, but the Gospel is the way we grow (Gal. 3:1-3) and are renewed (Col. 1:6). It is the solution to each problem, the key to each closed door, the power through each barrier (Rom. 1:16-17).
The Gospel (Gal. 2:14), renews us spiritually, psychologically, corporately, socially. The Gospel avoids the errors of legalism and liberalism, moralism and relativism, yet it does not produce something in between, but rather something different from them all. The Gospel critiques both religion and irreligion (Matt. 21:31). It shows us a God far more holy than the legalist can bear (Jesus had to die because we could not satisfy God’s holy demands) and yet far more merciful than the liberal can conceive (Jesus had to die because God loves us). The Gospel affects everything...
New way with God - The Gospel moves us from an impersonal “servant” relationship with God to a personal “Father-child” relationship with Him—from a self-centred, fear-based motive to act morally to a love-based desire to delight (and delight in) God.
New way with self - We no longer base our identity on what others think of us—or even what we think of ourselves—but on what God thinks of us in Christ (1 Cor. 4:3-4). The Gospel produces neither an inferiority complex (since God sees us as beautiful in Christ) nor a superiority complex (since we know we are sinners saved only by grace). The transforming power of the Gospel simultaneously produces in us both confidence and humility.
So now we view our problems differently - The moralizing approach to solving problems says, “Repent, you are not living right.” The psychological approach says, “You must accept yourself just as you are.” The Gospel says, “You are relying on something other than Jesus Christ to save you.”
New Way With Others - Through the Gospel we become a new people of God, united to Christ and to each other. Since the Gospel both humbles us and yet assures us that we are loved, we are now free from both envy and pride, both inferiority and superiority. We no longer receive our sense of worth through approval from people or through power over people. This makes our relationships things of beauty driven by love (Gal. 5:6). We neither use people nor are overly dependent upon them; rather we are free to serve, affirm, or confront others—whatever is best for them.
So you may desire to shed some weight but what about choosing a resolution that will change the core of who you are. May you discover that Jesus changes everything!
Dave Harder
I am the lead pastor of "The Journey" in Ottawa. We are a missional church community journeying together to become more like Jesus and make a difference both locally and globally.
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