Definition of Success.

Mark Batterson, of National Community Church in Washington DC, had a four great definitions of success in his blog post “Definition of Success” on Monday. It was encouraging, challenging and made me rethink a number of things…

“Thought I’d share a few of my personal definitions of success. It’s important to define success in biblical and personal ways. You need to know what you’re aiming at or you will succeed at the wrong thing.

1.  Success is maximizing your God given potential. Success is synonymous with stewardship.

2. Success is doing the best you can with what you have where you are. Success is not circumstantial. Some of the most successful people are those in the worst of circumstances, but theymake the most of them. That’s success.

3. Success is when the people who know you the best respect you the most. We care way too much about what strangers think of us, but they won’t be the ones at our graveside. I want my wife and my kids to respect me the most.

4. Success is trying until the day you die. I think most of us give up on our dreams way too easily and way too quickly. We stop trying. But if you’re still trying you’re succeeding!

One key to success is not worrying about the outcome. Winning or losing isn’t the issue. Trying is winning! That is what I told Parker when he decided to run for class president. That is the lesson I learned at our triathlon this weekend. That is what I’ve learned as a church planter. The measure of success is this: how hard did you try?

If you pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on you cannot fail.

The Nines Conference Today

Don’t miss the Nines Conference today. Leadership Network asked some of the church’s greatest leaders: “If you had nine minutes to talk one-on-one with thousands of church leaders, what is the one thing that you would tell them?”

The result is a series of passionate and personal messages that will help you and your church navigate into the future.”

If you haven’t registered, you can HERE

Four Questions to Stay on Fire For God

Last Sunday@Epic, we answered your question “How Do You Stay on Fire For God?”

The first step to keep my faith white hot is to take personal responsibility for my spiritual journey. Over the years, I’ve found myself giving excuses as to why I am not fired up spiritually. I’ve blamed churches, other people, my circumstances and even God for my lack of spiritual growth. I say things like “If ______ would happen or if this person would do ________, then I would be fired up!” But I was wrong. Change doesn’t come from the outside in, but from the inside out. Personally, I have found I need to do what David did in 1 Samuel 30:6 ” David strengthened himself with trust in his God.” He went to God and took responsibility for his spiritual life.

Here’s four categories and questions I weekly ask myself:

1. QUIET: When did you hang out with Jesus this week?

2. NOISE: What did I specifically praise Jesus for this week?

3. JOURNEY: Who in Christian community was I authentic with this week?

4. SERVE: Who did I love and reach out to this week?

On a weekly basis, I need to be intentional about all four of those areas in my life. Why? Because the greatest thing I bring to my workplace, my neighborhood, and my family is a person who is fully fired up in my relationship with Christ.

Cool is No Longer Cool

I was reading through LifeChurch.tv’s blog today and came across this post that really resonated with where Jesus is leading me right now.

http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2009/05/13/cool-is-no-longer-cool/

The American Church is not lacking for “cool” pastors. Like a single guy who is trying just-a-bit-too-hard to impress a girl, some churches are simply trying too hard to be cool.
I’m very encouraged to see a shifting in direction. For years, many of us seemed focused on:

• Designing relevant church experiences.
• Producing entertaining videos.
• Creating inviting environments.
• Crafting sermon series to draw a crowd.
• Writing sermons with shock value and plenty of humor or stories.

While all of the above can be effective tools, many of my friends are intentionally moving in a stronger direction. So many great Christian leaders are seeing far better results with:

• Bathing a sermon in prayer.
• Fasting regularly.
• Practicing personal confession and repentance.
• Preaching from the overflow of time alone in God’s word.
• Caring deeply for others in biblical community.

I’m thrilled so many leaders are placing less emphasis on being cool and more emphasis on being like Christ.

A Real Leader.

I’ve been listening to Unleash 09 Conference at NewSpring Church. IT ROCKS! In the breakout on Worship Planning, this was a great list on actions of a REAL leader.

A Real Leader…

• looks to get involved in solving problems instead of running from them.
• defends his team first before making excuses for himself.
• rejects offers to leave his team for the sake of personal advancement.
• knows when he is placing a lid on the ones he leads and is quick to get out of their way.
• inspires those he leads with his commitment, care, attitude and effort… and then his words… if necessary.
• speaks truth in love and never forsakes the vision or lowers the bar.
• inspires growth without demanding it from those he leads.
• is one his people want to be around and not one they dread seeing.
• has a desire to be led and not left alone.
• realizes that he is a part of the team… not above or better than the team.
• encourages and invites critique of his abilities from the ones he leads.
• sees defeat as a learning experience and not the end of the world.
• stays calm in the midst of calamity and does his best leading when the times are the toughest.
• doesn’t make decisions by looking at popular opinion or traditional values.
• challenges the status quo and risks his reputation to do so… not for notoriety or gain, but because its the right thing to do is followed.

Vision 2009: Epic Church

God really rocked our world the last few weeks at Epic. He is building His church and He is using every single one of us to build His community.

God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what He is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now He’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home. Ephesians 2:20-22

Epic’s Mission: To Challenge People to Discover Their Role in God’s Story.

We Have a Vision for a Church Where:

1. Everyone is WELCOME
Vision: To create a culturally relevant worship experience that will serve seekers and build believers in a life changing relationship with Jesus

2. Everyone is NEEDED
Vision: The church does not exist for us, but are the church and we exist for the world.

3. Everyone is CHANGED
Vision: To become unstoppable idiots who have been with Jesus

WE COMMIT TO PARTNER TOGETHER TO …

1. Reach UP: Grow Closer to Christ
We agree to authenticly face the journey of becoming more like Jesus.

2. Reach IN: Grow Closer to One Another
We agree to build our lives around living out the “one anothers” of scripture.

3. Reach OUT: Grow Closer to Others
We agree to do anything short of sin to reach people without Christ.

Definition of Parenting

When asked “What do you do?” at a social engagement, we usually respond by stating our career. Subconsciously in our world, I believe we’ve placed the value of our career over our choice to raise kids. In an unstated way, we placed the worth of our paycheck higher than the importance of parenting. If we don’t believe in the value of our role as a parent, we won’t value your role as a parent. I believe being parent is one of the greatest callings that you will ever have in your entire life. When you see that our children are a gift from God and Jesus has entrusted them to you to teach and train them to live a life of following Him, it really changes your perspective.

So Moms and Dads when someone asks, “What do you do?” share this…

“That’s easy. I’m in charge of socializing (insert number of kids) homo sapiens in the dominant values of the Judao-Christian tradition so that they become spiritual leaders who are authentic in Influence, uncompromising in integrity, intentional about community, passionate about Jesus and courageously called by God engage culture in order that they might be instruments in the transformation of the society and bring the kingdom of God to earth.”

“And what do you do? Just a lawyer?”

“The Perfect Kid” series continues Sunday.

Jesus and Critics

When Jesus Christ walked the earth, the people who were most involved in God’s community were the people who were the biggest critics of Christ, His mission and His ministry. It’s crazy. Christ’s critics were in worship every week. They were engaged in the Scriptures. But since Jesus didn’t fit in their box in the way they thought He should do ministry, they missed Him.

You would think they would see His heart to reach the lost sheep, but they didn’t. You would think they would listen to truth of His words, but they didn’t. You would think they would see what the Holy Spirit was doing in the lives of those who were following Him, but they didn’t. Because they were so hung up on the rites of the Sabbath, they missed that He was The Lord of the Sabbath. Because they couldn’t see the Rock He was building his church on, they decided to throw stones. Because they were threatened by Him, they decided to threaten him.

Even though His critics probably never received Him, He ultimately went to the cross to pay the penalty for those sins that probably hurt HIm the very most.

“Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Matthew 16:6

Message of the Week: The Political Elephant, Mark Batterson

Today I was listening to a bunch of podcasts for inspiration and ideas as I brainstormed message series for 2009 at Epic. The message Mark Batterson from National Community Church gave the week before the election was dead on about politics and our mission in the local church. Being a church in the heart of Washington D.C., National is uniquely positioned with people across the political spectrum. I know some of you will be challenged by what he has to say, but if we are going to be the church that Christ is calling us to be and the world desperately needs, we must hit this one head on.

Links – The Political Elephant, Mark Batterson

AUDIO / VIDEO

TRANSCRIPT

What do you think? In what way did this challenge your thinking?

Good Enough is Not Good Enough

As we move into this winter season at Epic, one of the challenges I gave to to the leaders is to strive to do everything with excellence for Christ. Sometimes we think this is “It’s just church. It’s good enough. What’s the big deal?” We have the privilege to partner in building the Bride of Christ. Is there any task on earth giving more to? In writing to a church at Colossae, Paul challenged the church, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. ” Colossians 3:23

Excellence honors God and inspires others. God is worthy of nothing less than our most excellent effort. Non-Christians assume that things will be shoddily done. Non-Christians assume we will have low standards. Non-Christians expect us Christians to give less than our best. They think everything we are doing is a big charade. But when we value excellence, it makes a statement about the kind of God we worship. It makes a statement about the commitment we have to our excellent God. In response to his holiness, greatness and his ultimate sacrifice for us, our attitude should be to give God our best. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31

Epic Excellence Challenge: “Good Enough is Not Good Enough”