Is Our Church a Salad Bar or a Main Entrée?

What an awesome time we had celebrating our first anniversary yesterday! Thanks to everyone that made it such a huge success. over 108 people attended, the weather held off, the food was great and hearing the powerful testimonies was inspirational. But what's in store for The Grove in year 2?

One of the many blogs I receive titled theirs: "Is Your Church a Salad Bar or a Main Entrée?"

The blog went on to say:

"A recent article in USA Today says that religion in the United States is now a "salad bar" where people "heap on upbeat beliefs they like and often leave the veggies -- like strict doctrines -- behind."

For example, 92 percent of the Americans surveyed said they believe in God, and 58 percent say they pray every day. And while 74 percent of people believe there is a heaven, just 59 percent believe there is a hell. And 70 percent of those polled said that they believe "many religions can lead to eternal life."

Those are some pretty startling statistics.

As pastors and church leaders, great is the burden on us to spiritually advise, teach, and admonish those under our care. The Bible speaks specifically about how we’ll be judged on our faithfulness in doing so.

How would the people your church answer this survey:

1. Do you believe in God?
2. Do you pray every day?
3. Do you believe in heaven?
4. Do you believe in hell?
5. Do you believe a person can get to heaven outside of Christ?

I would hope that each of our churches would do much better than this national survey implies they would."

The author then challenged pastors to take a few minutes to think about the implications of this for your church, and those you to whom you minister. Are you being clear in what you teach? And are the people under your care growing in their understand of what it means to be a believer?

So, is your church a salad bar, or more of a source of nourishing protein?"

I began to wonder how the people of The Grove would answer these questions. Just last night at The Edge (a young adult small group) we discussed our cultures perspective on whether the Bible is inspired and whether we should take it literally. I shared my concern that I worry that we may be entertaining people but are they growing in their relationship with Christ and their knowledge of scripture?

My desire is not just to gather a crowd, but to rise up mature Christians that are world changers. Take a minute and answer the questions above. Then I'd be interested in reading your comments. You can either post them here or send them personally to my personal email at jsivyer@oh.rr.com.

I look forward to year #2 ! Real People, Real Truth, Really!

Jeff

It's A Sign!

Here we are on the edge of The Grove's first anniversary! We've witnessed so many things during our first year as an independant church. I can't wait to read all the testimonies that will be published this weekend. I'm also looking forward to worshipping outdoors and all of the extra special things that will be happening. I'm praying you are all coming and bringing a friend or family member with you.

I'm excited to let you know that tonight Tom Winfield, Lennie Pitsenbarger and myself put our new sign atop the pole at the road. I've included some pictures for you.

Saturday morning we'll spreuce up The Grove and we'll be ready to celebrate.

Thanks to all of you that have made this church one that's made up of Real People, learning the Real Truth, Really!


Jeff

When in Rome...

You may be familiar with the end of that phrase, "do as the Romans do".

We all know that it is easy to become like those you hang around with. At the Grove we are hoping for the opposite to happen. We want to rub off on thoe around us.

While attending the church planting conference in Orlando I was challenged to more succinctly state what I believe God's vision is for The Grove. A vision statement is different from the mission statement. You all know the mission statement, "To Know, Go, Show and Sow."

A vision statement's goal is to identify a problem and the fix. In the weeks and months to follow I hope to flesh it out more so I'll just lay it out there and you can ask me if you are interested in knowing more til my next blog. Here it is, "Real People, Real Truth, Really!"

Hope you can join us over the next 15 weeks as we will be looking deeply into the Book of Romans. This week's message is entitled, "I Have Good news and Bad News".


Til next time I remain In His Grip!

Jeff

There's No Place Like Home

I had hoped to summarize the rest of our conference but got too distracted by all the fun in the sun. If you don't believe me take a close look at Dave and Lenie - they are the ying and yang of the value of sunscreen!

If I can put 35 pages of notes into a couple of thoughts they would this:

We must do all we can as individuals and a s a church to assist believers in growing to maturity. It must be woven into the very fabric of who we are - we will be talking about this thing called "Life on Life Missional Evangelism" in the weeks to come. We already have some basic processes in place, we call them Grove 101, 201, 301. I went to work developing 401 before I left for Orlando and will be rolling it out soon.

The final thought for tonight is this: the world is looking for Real People and the Real Truth, Really! More on what this means later.

I hope you will join us this Sunday at 9am at the Y for Melanie Rodriguez's baptism!

She is a young woman who has worked very hard to put herself through college - just graduated with her degree in nursing and now wants to get more serious about her walk with the Lord. I hope we can blow her away by supporting her in this Next Step.

Are you hearing God's voice tell you it's time to be baptized? Give me a call if that's the case.

Til next time - stay In His Grip

Jeff

Update From Exponential 08

Hello again!

It's been an exhausting day. Our first workshop began at 8am and we went til 5:20pm. So much to process and consider as it applies to The Grove.

It has been good on several fronts to realize that we are doing some great things already!

At the same time there are things we could be doing we are not.

I need to make sure the clear vision that God has given to me for His church is stated clearly in our vision - so expect some further writing about that. The prevailing theme throughout this conference has been the development of disciples and leaders. I have been challenged by Randy Popes definition of "Life on Life Missional Discipleship". He has 40 years of discipling men in small groups and if he ever had to choose between pastoring his church of 3,500 or raising up leaders in a small group and he wouldn't take 20 seconds to choose the small group.

In order for The Grove to fulfill it's mission of planting new churches in N/E Ohio we must raise up more leaders and more artists.

A lot of conversation has taken place over a church's DNA. At the same time I've been reading a book on the subject and am curious what others think is unique about us. What sets The Grove apart form any other church.? I don't mean better or superior, just what makes us unique?

Alan Hirsh has challenged us to look at 4 areas that we need to recover in order to get back to our "ethos" - or our characteristic spirit of our church culture.

Here are two of them (I hope you find it as interesting as I):

We must recover the absolute centrality of Jesus of His own movement. (meaning the Christian church movement)

We must recover discipleship as the core task of the church.

I especially enjoyed seeing an old friend, Steve Andrews from Kensington Community Church in Troy Michigan. I'll write more tomorrow about his thoughts and any additional insights I get in the final sessions tomorrow.

Please continue to pray for Lenie, Dave and I that we will capture all we need to in order to come home inspired and motivated to take the next step in church planting.

In His Grip,

Jeff

Delays, Alligators and 84 Degrees

Well its been way too long since I last wrote. I'd have written Sunday but we were stuck in the airport for a 3+ hour delay and didn't get here til late. Then we learned our rooms weren't set up for Internet. On top of it all I had to pay when I got to the Internet cafe.

Dave Orloski, Lenie Pitsenbarger and myself are attending Exponential 08 in Orlando this week. We started our week out at Kissimmee Wildlife Tours and an airboat ride which was a blast!

We ended the evening wandering around downtown Disney and watching people and the beautiful lights in the warm evening air.

Today we went to First Baptist Church of Orlando for the start of this church planting conference and were treated to an excellent band from 2/42 Community Church. (Those who helped us start 2.0 will remember visiting this church on our field trip.) Their church has grown from the 350 at the grand opening to over 1200 today.

Then Andy Stanley spoke on the subject of vision. He clarified several things for me and helped generate more conversation with Dave and Lenie and I. They're at the beach/waterfront and I'm slaving over a hot keyboard. Not really - really wanted to keep in touch with all of you.

Hope you enjoy the few pics I've attached and we ask for your prayers as we continue to seek God's revelation about our next church plant! Talk with you soon - in the meanwhile I remain,

In His Grip,

Jeff

What's Love Got To Do With It?

OK, so it's not such a religious song, but I thought I'd use it as a teaser to something very important I want to share today. It's all about love! The love of a 16 year old going on 17 when he meets his soul mate.

There I was sitting in the high school Sunday School class when she entered. Looking pretty much like her picture here. She introduced herself and I knew I needed to get to know her before one of the other male species made their move.

I had to act quick - Thursday night our group was going bowling - could she possibly need a ride?
But what if other people needed a ride too? Too bad for them, I wanted to take her by myself. I arrived at her home, met her parents, went bowling and drove her home. I had to do some fast talking for her to give me another chance - so I made my best 16 year old dorky boy move - and she gave in. We dated regularly for the rest of our junior and senior year - attended both proms (I was the envy of all the guys I knew when I walked in with her on my arm).

Right after graduation we took a break, both needing to find ourselves. Then in the spring of 1971 we went out again and talked. She couldn't live her life without me she said (or some words to that effect :) ) Maybe it was more like "nothing better had come along yet so she'd hang in there with me".

March 25, 972 we said "I do" forever and she's been hanging in there with me through more thick than thin!

Job changes, premature births, ministry successes and failures, gray hair and 30 lbs. and we love each other more than in Sunday School.

She is the most unselfish woman I've ever met (most beautiful too - gets better with age). She was and is totally dedicated to her role as mom and now grandma. Cindy has shown me unconditional love during my unlovely times, has been my biggest fan - truly a balcony person. She inspires me to keep going when it looked like all was lost.

I don't think there are enough words to express what these last 36+ years have meant to me - but I hope God grants us another 36! I know she's still pretty shy - and may even cringe when she reads this - but honey "I love you not only for who you are but because of who I am when I'm with you!"

Happy Anniversary!