Author: Robert

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launch: starting a new church from scratch

i’m not much on following formulas which is why liked “launch” by nelson searcy and kerrick thomas. i just finished it after a long “on again / off again” reading of it. the book is a good resource on planting churches. there was a wealth of what not to do and what to do within it’s pages. thankfully it walked the fine line of offering helpful advice without jumping into the egotistical mindset of telling you that you should plant the church in just this manner. i like it when people acts as guides rather than experts. i am presently using and will continue to use a good bit of what i read within “launch.” if you believe GOD my be calling you to plant a church the book is well worth your time.

my run for the day
distance – 2.5 miles
time – 28:03
pace – 11/14/mile
weather – 21º/windy & icy

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remember the milk & gmail

i’m a big user of rememebr the milk (an online task list manager) but i had not previously used the gmail extension until a few weeks ago. it’s great. it keeps my task in front of me when ever i check my email. i’m not sure why i even surfed the net before firefox and the extensions it allows.

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juno

the family and i love central wisconsin but there are a few things that w do miss about baton rouge – our friends there, the food, and the movie culture. people in central wisconsin don’t watch many movies. in baton rouge pam and i would sneak off in the middle of the day sometimes to go and watch a movie. you can’t do that here because there are no theaters open until 4 p.m. that makes it hard for us to preview movies before taking adam or noah to them. sometimes we are just not sure about the content of a movie being right for our kids and when that happens it requires that one of us go see it first. that’s a little harder to do when it has to be at night.

juno is one such movie. pam and i just weren’t sure about taking adam to see it. therefore, we’ve been trying to figure out when we could preview it and decide about taking adam to it. for the preview to happen the kids had to be doing something else and that had not happened until tonight. pam and i are kidless tonight because both the boys are spending the night at other people’s homes. so we decided to go see the movie. it was great. i don’t think adam would really think it was that funny but pam and i loved it. i thought it did a great job of handling the messy situations that necessarily made up the plot of the movie. as a matter of fact the only problem i had with the movie was some of the lines from the main character which were way to thought out (what teen would know who soupie sales is). the movie really was incredible.

SIDE NOTE – i am so much slower than i used to be. i ran in the point bock run today and finished in 51:49. that’s a lot slower than i used to run 5 miles (pre calf tear). this also means that i have incorrectly measured my current running distances because i have been getting better times than this on my local runs. the good news is that i throughly enjoyed the race and i now know what a bock is (it’s a strong lager which has origins in the hanseatic town einbeck, germany). once tapestry is started i’m going to really encourage the group to sponsor a run.

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tapestry monthly prayer email – march

i just finished the tapestry monthly prayer email for march. you can view it here. if you do not receive this each month and would like to just email me (my name @gmail.com) and i will place you on the list.

my run for the day
distance 3.0 miles
time – 29:43
pace – 9:55/mile
weather – 27º/snowing

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more interviews

rhodia
i’ve interviewed a few more people concerning what they would like to see a church in the point area do. all of the conversations have been fascinating. someone asked me if i was going to shape the church around this interviews and i thought it was an excellent question. i’m not really interviewing people as a marketing strategy, like they are a focus group. there have been things said that i am sure will never be a part of the church (i probably should not say never, because strange things can happen). for example one interviewee said she want a church to sing in parts. i don’t really expect that to happen. so the interviews aren’t really to find out what works and doesn’t work church wise for the people we are trying to reach. rather the interviews are meant to hear what the community is saying and then respond within our faith.

yet the interviews will definitely shape what the church will be like. i’m listening to thoughts of people i really enjoy talking with and that will have a dramatic impact on what we do and how we do it. it won’t shape our cornerstone beliefs (JESUS does that) but it will shape how we talk about them.

i’ve decided to post a page that leads people to the interviews so that i have an easy way to link the people i interview to what i am writing. it’s on the top of the webpage and is labeled “community conversation.” for those who just want to go directly to the interview document you may do so by clicking here.

my run for the day
distance 6.0 miles
time 58:49
pace – 9:49/mile
weather – 23º

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tapestry update & living biblically

alan as a crazy psycho bible guy
life is pretty exciting right now. as i posted earlier tapestry had it’s first leadership meeting three weeks ago with three committed adults, two committed kids, and an adult guest. this past sunday we had our second tapestry leadership meeting (which is supper, reading through the acts of the apostles, and prayer) with our former guest becoming a committed member (woohoo kaylyn!) and a new adult guest. i’ve also had someone else express interest learning more about what we’re doing. like i said it’s an exciting time.

right now as a group we are praying the following:

  • asking GOD when we would should launch public services.
  • asking GOD how we can best serve our community
  • asking GOD to lead us to the right people to help start the church – avoiding wolves both religious and non-religious

on a personal note i finished the year of living biblically today and i highly recommend it. as a minister i really enjoyed looking into someone’s mind as they tried to live out as literally as possible what the bible says. it made for some great moments. some of those moments were quite moving while others were funny enough that i audibly snorted in the middle of emy j’s coffee shop while reading it. it really is a good read.

SIDE NOTE – the photo is an old one of alan lusk when he worked within the great youth ministry of parkview

my run for the day
distance – 4.0 miles
time – 38:20
pace – 9:35/mile
weather – 19º/windy

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finally someone summarizes my feelings on lock-ins


ht len

as a youth minister i hated lock-ins. i loved retreats but i HATED lock-ins.

my run for the day
distance – 5.0 miles
time – 47:29
pace 9:30/mile
weather – 25º/windy