a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

FINALLY.
A little more breathing room, and a lot more info...

Howdy, all. Just finished my fourth 50+hour week in a row, but things are looking up and calming down. I finally have a fellow adult editor, whom I've worked alongside a couple times before in the past, to take some stuff off my plate (one behemoth project in particular, although she'll line-edit my thing as well... more on that shortly....) She actually joined me a couple weeks ago, but had to finish up other projects before turning her focus back to Adult World (and as a 15-year editor who's done a ton of Pastor-Leader stuff and has hated doing the Children's stuff that was foisted upon her not once but twice, we're both quite happy about this move).

Also contributing immensely to this week's happiness is that, after more than a year and a half of gestation, my baby finally has an official name -- and that, despite the owner-level stigma toward a certain word therein, my original title has survived intact (albeit as a subtitle now instead of a title, but I'm fine with that).

And thus, I'd like to announce the impending birth of the following small-group/Sunday School series: Growing Out: From Disciples to Disciplers.

Seasons 1 and 2 will out in August; Seasons 3 and 4 in December; and if all goes well, Seasons 5 and 6 in Summer 2010. So, let me explain a little of what I've explained in this here building countless times over the last 19 months (cover yr eyes, tim ):

Season 1 is about developing your relationship with Jesus. The first person you have to disciple is yourself -- or more to the point, let Jesus show you how to be His disciple. So there's a lot of focus on spiritual disciplines such as prayer, worship, Bible study, fellowship, and how to "prepare the way," to speak.

So, OK, great, relationship with Jesus, what does that look like in the rest of your life -- your family, your friends, your work? How do you invite Jesus into each of those relationships? And I don't mean evangelism, although if y'r doing it right that's a natural consequence. Rather: How do you live this faith out so it's obvious to everyone else you care about that it IS faith? That's what Season 2 locks in on.

Season 3 jumps on the spiritual-gifts bandwagon but gives it a twist. Unlike Network, et al. -- as extremely useful as they are for the discovery part -- the focus isn't solely on, "Oh, God's built and gifted you this way -- how we plug that into ministry here?" That's fine and appropriate, but maybe, just maybe, God wants you to use those gifts in your community, with people who wouldn't step foot inside of the American church because of what we've made it. Either way, I want people to walk away with a sense of mission, whatever baby steps that might look like during this season.

Season 4 (currently being written) is, to me, the point of this whole series -- the culmination of the "core" seasons that every Christian oughta be able to ultimately pull off, even if they don't go on to Seasons 5 and 6 (but if they get this far, it's kind of inevitable) -- and I don't really see anyone else facilitating it resource-wise.

And it's this: If you've gotten this far -- you've developed and deepened your walk with Jesus, you've learned how to actually live it out among those people you most care about, and you've discovered how's God's uniquely built you and begun to discover a little of what He wants to do with that -- now, how do you take what God's shown you, turn around, and help someone ELSE walk through that, rather than stamp them with a "saved" sticker and leave them to drown?

Again, the American seeker-sensitive church (and granted, most of the rest of the American church as well) has SUCKED at this. And now, with the two Willow Creek studies REVEAL and Follow Me, even Hybels & Co. have openly copped to this failure that I'd thought was glaringly obvious even when I was a baby Christian 25 years ago. 

Anyway, I'd like to help be part of the solution here.

Season 5 would get into leadership issues -- because, let's face it, if you've walked through Seasons 1-4, y'r ready for this. And even if y'r not a leader type, yr maturity is gonna stick out like a sore thumb, and thus you WILL get recruited into leadership (heck, most churches'll candidate you for elder at Season 2.... ). So this quarter helps you walk together through the foibles of leadership -- communication, conflict resolution, building consensus, learning how to adjust you AND your ministry, staying focused on God instead of "MY Ministry," etc.

Season 6 gets into developing a God-given vision -- God's put THIS unique thing on yr heart; how do you turn that dream/vision into a reality? How do you get others on board (and praying -- a LOT)? How do you know it really IS God, and not just you? (And again, tim, hush. ) And as with Season 4, I don't know of a single study/curriculum out there that helps people walks through this. (I guess the Sonship/Growing a Healthy Church stuff does, but in a much more limited scope -- this wouldn't be just for church planters.)

And lest we forget, all of this is kicked Group-style. Go here to get an idea of what that looks like, and why that's so different. When we get closer to the publish date, I'll probably put my series intro, "Why REAL Discipleship Works," up here for all to see. But it's a bit early for that still. From a company perspective, I really see this as the Trojan Horse to get us in a lot of doors that we've kind of locked on both sides (I won't go into that here...). It meets a critical need in the church right now, yet does it in a way a lot of them has never experienced before, and that WORKS. Once they try it.... well, I've got some great examples of what happens in the aforementioned intro....

So that's the (not so) short version of it. And again, I am a very happy man at this moment. Now that my baby's finally been named, it finally FEELS real. It's SO on.

That said, do feel free to pray for this project and for me. Of COURSE it would dawn on me that the last time I felt this giddy at work was EXACTLY three years ago, the week before the Super Bowl, and thus the week before THIS occured. (And curiously/appropriately? enough -- as this past Saturday would've been my mother's 70th birthday and she almost certainly would've been packing the van and moving out here as we speak -- I find I finally have, after three years, finally been able to mourn that a little.)

So anyway, pray that this isn't again the high before the proverbial Jersey shoe dropping, but rather me coming out the other end of a long and difficult stretch at a really appropriate time. You HAVE been following this blog, right?

Thanks, as always.

Posted by: burninglight at 22:21 | link | comments (3)

For the LAdies....

Although the funky crosses could conceivably appeal to guys, too..... Anyway, Marion's set up two Etsy sites to sell her arts and crafts, and it's getting some traction, so by all means check it out:

Shade Tree Studios

Cross Country

They'll remain to the left as well, for future reference.

Maybe back to something coherent soon. A sub-50-hour week would sure help. Might finally have one of those this week.

Posted by: burninglight at 01:25 | link | comments (5)

Yikes....

I'm so busy that I actually forgot to post this, of all things.... and it's not like I haven't dreamed about the day a few thousand times, either....

So, yeah, anyway: You know that curriculum I've been writing that I've harped endlessly about for the last year and a half?

IT'S BEEN ACCEPTED.

As in: I get to publish (so far) officially 2, probably at least 4 (we'll know for sure next week), and hopefully (per the original plan) 6 quarters of Bible study, all written by yrs truly. (OK, I've just started writing Quarter 4, but I have time.)

More details sometime soon. But I at least found time to take Marion out to dinner last night (the trigger on Quarters 1 and 2 having finally been pulled yesterday morning). I haven't even told the group yet; that'll be tonight, though.

So, while I'm not reacting proportionately right now, this is in fact GREAT news. It'll hit me sometime soon, though, I'm sure. And then I'll talk more about it, I'm even more sure. 'Cause that's what I do.

Posted by: burninglight at 22:54 | link | comments (18)