Gray Lamb and Revolution church

Preachers we have to stop promoting this image that we are perfect. We forget that though we are helping others to walk out their faith we also have to walk out ours. We are on this journey together. There is a pastor named Gary lamb who started revolution church in canton. Gary had an affair and was asked by the board of his church to resign. On his blog www.garylamb.org he discusses a few questions asked of him. This particular question and answer stood out to me:

Will I be returning as the pastor of Revolution?

"No. That chapter of my life is over. Let me say again that I agree 100% with the decision by our board to ask for my resignation. I was in blatant sin that at this time disqualifies me from pastoring. I know this is hard to accept by so many people who attend Revolution because Revolution is a place of grace, forgiveness, and for less than perfect people. It still is all of those things but as I said in my resignation letter there are consequences for sin."

Cheating on your wife is bad I repeat bad!!! However, I think Gary should have took a leave of absence to get his family right but not resign. The reason why I think this is because this goes away from the purpose in which he started this church revolution. Wouldn't this be a great testimony of how one recovers after falling. After all this is the stage where Christ died for us (Yet while we were sinners). Gary says there are consequences for sin. I agree but the main consequence was death and Christ saved us from that. The scriptures are full of imperfect leaders who at one time or another sinned against God. But it was God's grace that was sufficient. What then are you saying because you are a leader and messed up there is no coming back from that. Perhaps that is the problem. We think of ourselves more highly than we ought. I thought the whole idea of revolution was grace to all even after you fall or was that just a gimmick?

ReDo Church

There are a lot of things I envision about church and the type of church I would like to plant. I am looking at a lot of new churches and I am wondering how new are they. It seems as if everyone as jumped on the "not church as usual" band wagon when in essence it is. I have no problem with different. In fact my whole vision is different. However, what i hear are fears of being different because church people might not get it. What I read from that is we want other church people. If that is our goal then why plant a new church. Church planting to me should focus on the un-churched. We are not planting churches just to say we have best church out now. Hopefully we are planting churches to reach people who normally would not be reached. In that regard we have to be different. Yes reinvent the wheel. Stop just ReDoing church and start rethinking church because that is when transformaton will come.

All are welcomed.

All are welcomed
except: gays, people who have not been saved a long time, people who don't agree with Jesus, people who are looking for a true encounter with God, democrats, republicans, people who love msnbc, people who listen to rush limbaugh.

I was talking to a few friends yesterday and the subject of people having to pretend to be something else in order to be accepted in the church. For example, if there is a person who is a homosexual in church they may feel the need to hide who they are and put up fronts in order to be taking seriously. I often wonder when we say all are welcomed do we really mean that? Does the phrase "All are welcomed" on flyers and websites just serve as a gimmick to appear to be open minded when really we are not. Should the "all are welcomed" have fine print and the commercials have an announcer at the end of the commercial who talks real fast?

Are all really welcomed?

Wedding planning and Church Planting

In august it will be my second wedding anniversary. I remember my wedding like yesterday. I remember all the fights me and my wife had about money and planning for this event. We both wanted a great wedding but our ideas were different on how that looked. I wanted to fly to a island a few close friends and get married. My wife wanted a big church wedding with all the bells and whistles. We went with the church wedding. I say we spent almost $15,000.00 on that one day. Which I hear was low balling. When the wedding was done we didn't have any money for a honey moon and we got home and we were broke. We were working super hard and were super stressed out. My biggest fear was realized. We planned for the wedding and not the marriage. We blew off counseling sessions to taste cake and plan receptions. We skipped bills to pay for dresses and a caterer(who normally is real good but on our day sucked). We didn't even read the book we were assigned we both lied and cheated our way through marriage counseling. The wedding was planned but the marriage surprised us. My earlier post "Gimmicks but no power" I mentioned how churches bank so much on gimmicks to get people in to the first service but do not make sure things are in place to sustain the life of the church.

I am a church planter who have made several mistakes. I might plan to much in some regards. We are trying to lay a foundation in which we can build on. Church planting is more than lights and grand arenas. Church planting is about starting new churches that will transform people lives. The best outreach methods to people who don't do church or not in to church or who are tired of church, experts say is planting new churches. There are over 800,331 people in Atlanta alone who fit in that previous category. There are churches but established churches tend to lean on survival and not new growth. I read a survey that said about 300 churches close every Sunday. The reason for most of these closings are due to great weddings but awful marriages.

GIMMICKS WITH NO POWER

Am I the only church planter or church leader sick of gimmicks. Churches with so much gimmicks that there aren't any ministries going on. Lives are not changed and at the end of the day the gimmick church does not last. I see people giving out door prizes and cash as incentives to come to church. I see church planters put so much in to a start of the church a no work for the life of the church (more on that later) I see people preach weak sermons or sermons that don't deal with me or the world around me. Heaven is easy to preach. What is hard is telling me how to live on earth. We are doing everything possible just to draw a crowd. I have an idea lets juggle flaming poodles... yeah that will get them in. I know lets do a big event so the news can come and give us free publicity. How about every 3 months we come up with a new marketing plan? Wait I got it lets invite someone else that draws a crowd.

The sad thing is others see a few early successes and follow what they did. Then that gimmick becomes the model. Thus here we are today a church with Gimmicks and no Power!!!

As I plan for our upcoming church plant I often wonder when I see other ministries am I doing something wrong. Like my partner asked me when designing our flyers do I want my name on them? I said jokingly nobody knows me any way it would be a waste of ink. But every other church marketing thing I see has the pastor name, picture, and hobbies on it. lol. But you know what i mean. Preachers with head shots an stuff. I often wonder what are we promoting. The preacher or the community we serve. I am an okay preacher. I have good days and bad, like I'm sure many do. But I often struggle with exposure. I just want people who hear me to leave with a better understanding. Not to leave saying I am awesome but the one I represent is awesome.

Lord what have we done with your church?