echoes of redemption | steven dilla

I did a post a while back where I said, Anything I do alone in ministry is a failure. If you hang around me long, you know I am fasinated by the power of a team.

There is something amazing about connecting with people in such a way that we accomplish something together we never could have accomplished alone.

One of my goals as a leader is to stay ahead of my team. If I can pave the way for where they are headed - for what is next - then I feel like I have succeeded in serving them. The tuff part is, the more talented the team, the more work it is to stay ahead of them. Here’s what I’ve found that helps:

• I must have alone time to refuel/recharge/refocus before I can lead effectively. This alone time is less about leadership of the team (quote above…) and more about self leadership in preparation for leading the team.
• I have to cast the vision to individuals before I cast it to the group - this allows me to see their reaction, learn their concerns and shape the way I cast to the group. (It also means there is always someone for which staff meeting is a rerun of a conversation we had the other day.)
  
• I will often get the vision for what is next and  work with one or two people on the team to pave the way for the rest of the team. Getting ahead is not easy, but if I work with the most gifted people in the room, it is significantly more simple.

Extreme poverty seems to float to the top of the list when you think about the massive needs in our world today. What is most interesting to me is to realize you don’t have to go over seas to find cases of extreme poverty.

Right here in America there is a poverty so extreme it has left many in our country dreaming of a life they cannot have. The poverty is spiritual poverty. It is common across all walks of life. It even jumps the labels we put on people. There are people who affiliate with no religion that are struggling spiritual poverty - there are also those who call themselves Christians who are wrestling with spiritual poverty.

Spiritual poverty is deceiving because those living in the deepest poverty feel like they are rich.

Jesus talked a lot about having a rich spirit. In many ways, you could call spiritual fullness one of His life messages - a message He delivered to those in spiritual poverty. The irreligious. The religious elite. Spiritual poverty was just as rampant then as it is now.

The question for us today is two fold. First, are we following Jesus and allowing Him to lift us from our spiritual poverty and fill our spirit? And second, have we joined Him in fighting against spiritual poverty?

Reflections on the One Prayer Fast

Last week we did a communal fast at Fellowship Church. It was a week full of listening to God and caffeine headaches.

Honestly, Friday was my most difficult day. Friday’s are my day off and I spend most of the day at home, disconnected from the folks I normally do life with. One of the biggest things I learned through the week was the power of strong Christian community.

Isolation primes us for attack. In my case, the cravings were stronger and the reasons to quit were more clear than ever - I lacked focus because I lacked friendship.

Fortunately my awesome wife was there to help - coming up with creative dinner ideas and helping us make it through the home stretch.

Lesson of the week: Community is the context for growth.

(One Prayer Fast Day 5)

I would love to hear some of the things God has shown you over the fast. Post your journey!

A few months ago a friend at work asked me what our goal was when we teach preschoolers. I thought for a second and said, “to capture their imagination.”

When you capture a child’s imagination you do two massive things. First, you win their attention. This allows the message you have to reach them. Second, you mark them for life with your message. I can think back to my childhood and remember a few things that sparked my imagination. I want church to be one of those things for the kids at Fellowship Church and the churches around the world that use our curriculum.

Ultimately it boils down to this:

If you can capture a child’s eyes and ears, you have have the two pathways the Holy Spirit uses to capture their heart.

Below is the theme song from our first series in Elevate Jr., it shows clips from all eight weeks of our first series, Spy Chase Jr. Elevate Jr. is targeted at 3-5 year olds and this 8-week series teaches the character trait of friendship.

We are already well into post production on our second series, which will teach the stories of Jesus. To find out more, visit ElevateKids.com.

Anything I do alone in ministry is a failure.

As a leader, a pastor - someone God has given the task of caring for His Church - if I’m doing ministry alone, I’m failing.

Ministry is all about mobilization. 

It is about raising up other pastors and training them to lead people. It is about empowering people to do things they would never have dreamed of doing. It is about brining the Body of Christ together to accomplish something no one person could accomplish apart from the Body of Christ.

But so many times I find myself doing ministry alone. Raising no one up. Accomplishing small things because there is no team to accomplish great things.

On a side note, Solo-ministry is a big reason why it is so difficult for me, and so many other pastors, to take a day off. God has called me to lead the teams He has placed me over - and He’s called me to take rest in Him. So it’s simple:

If I’m doing what God has asked and it’s taking more time than God has asked, I haven’t surrounded myself with the people God would want.

(Thanks to Anne Jackson and this post for stirring that last thought.)

I was reading in Genesis 1 yesterday and was hit with the question: Why did God separate light from darkness - why didn’t He destroy darkness? It could have all ended there - just light, no darkness.

Then I realized, as long as there is free will, there will be separation. Options. Choice.

In Genesis 1, God does a lot of separation. Just in the first three days, He separates light from darkness, waters in the sky from waters on the earth and seas from land. Later in Scripture He separates the Temple from the people, the Holy place from the rest of the Temple and the Most Holy place from the Holy place.

Most Christians today, when you ask them what Holiness is, will say, “separation.” God is Holy. He is separated. He is different.

Yet so many Christians make their lives about destruction. 

Is there destruction in Scripture? Absolutely. But notice, it does not come at the hands of a merciless God. It comes as the result of a people not choosing the path of light. It comes as a consequence of darkness. 

There tends to be little mercy in our Christian culture today. It’s easier to destroy another human’s heart than it is to help them heal from their separation. It’s easier to destroy organizations, causes and ideals than to separate our lives from them and still remain connected to the people as a source of light.

Maybe our lives should be modeled more after Genesis 1 - separation. Instead of trying to destroy things in the world that oppose God, we should separate ourselves from them. I’m not talking cultural disconnect, I’m talking Holiness. God remained sovereign over the darkness, we should remain connected to the people who are in darkness as we serve as ministers of reconciliation.

Each series at Elevate, there is one element we spend more time during production on than any other element - the Bible story. We want to communicate the message of the Bible in a clear, age-appropriate and applicational way.

During preproduction we work on our theology, narrative, flow and logic. We’ll spend hours hammering out a single story. When the story hits the art department our team works to come up with an engaging style for the characters, then the material heads to animation to bring it all to life. The audio department scores, adds the voice over and sound effects and passes it on to video post for final touch ups.

Take a look at one of our preschool Bible stories, the story of David and Mephibosheth:

And here is an elementary Bible story telling the story of Ruth and Naomi:

For more information on Elevate, visit elevatekids.com.

Here is a quick update on everything in my world (for the moment):

Update: Well, it’s the end of the day, I shot this video nearly 12 hours ago… first video blog was incredibly difficult to get on the web - but it’s up! Enjoy.

I recently read a post that combined the names of the top five largest churches in America into one church name. The author was making the point that a few churches carry the most influence on younger, developing churches.

Let’s just use numbers as a way to measure impact for a second. A 2005 study in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion found that there were about 335,000 churches in America. Another study found roughly 40 churches in America have an attendance over 10,000 each week.

The congregants for these 40 largest churches represent about 700,000 of the roughly 56 million people who attend some type of church in the US throughout the year. So, here is the breakdown: the 40 largest churches in America,

• reach 0.00125% of Americans who attend church annually.
• represent 0.00012% of churches in America.

That said, a few observations:

• No church has the corner on the kingdom of God. The 40 largest churches in America (combined) are reaching only a small fraction of our world.
• If you try to copy a small part of the body and replicate it, you will miss the opportunity to become the part of the body God intended for you to be. When we look at these churches, we’re looking at 0.00012% of the body of Christ, in America, at this moment in time. So really, we’re looking at a more infinitesimal part that that. Trying to replicate these churches without vision in place is futile.
• Stop the church worship. Each year a list is released of these 40 largest churches - how crazy is that? Christian’s ranking Christians. As Ed Young pointed out on his blog, many of these churches are guess-timating, estimating, or padding their numbers anyway. It’s not about the numbers - it never has been.
• We can learn immensely from these large churches. (Photocopying and learning are different things.) Most of these large churches have systems and processes in place that get the administration and business end out of the way of ministry. They know how to make decisions, lead people, stay fresh, take care of themselves, expand their ministry and tons more. Not to learn from the wisdom and experience these churches have to offer would be foolish.
• Stop playing hate. I have been a pat of Fellowship Church for three months shy of a decade now. I have also attended Bible College, Seminary and visited many other churches throughout the country. There is a tremendous amount of tension toward large churches. Why? Because the ear wants the hand to be an ear.

It’s that simple. Large churches play a single part of the body during a single time in history. They area not inherently bad simply because of size. On the flip side, a small church isn’t inherently ineffective because of it’s size.

Each church, each pastor, each leader, is called to play one part. I don’t hold you accountable for your part, and neither do you hold me accountable for mine. It is the freedom of grace. We are saved to be free, to lead like we feel we have been called, and to minister to a lost and dyeing culture.

Learn from those who have gone before you, pray your heart out for vision and build the Kingdom in your city.

(for more information on the stats, click here)