Guests, Groups, and Growth

At Cedar Ridge we are all about being a Simple Church. That does not mean a stupid church, or an easy church, or an insignificant church, but it does mean that we are very simple in our focus. We are simple because everything we do revolves around three main objectives:
Love God | Love People | Serve the World

My job is to build relational bridges of connection so that the people of Cedar Ridge move more freely into all three of those areas: Love God. Love People. Serve the World. I am trying to connect our guests to our groups through need fulfillment relationships started in prayer and I am trying to connect our groups to our growth through outreach focused service. We are convinced that guests come into our Worship Services on Sunday morning to EXPLORE God and what He is doing in and through the people of Cedar Ridge. We believe that our guests will best EXPERIENCE God’s love for people as they participate in our groups. We try to EXTEND the love of God into the world around us through service in the community and across the globe.

I am charged with the simple task of connecting and moving people through this process. Simple. Not easy. But simple.

So Tomorrow is Now Today

It has been an amazing summer. It has been exactly 100 days since my last post. I did not intend to leave a 100 day gap in my blog posts, but I did not foresee all that God would do in my life over the past 3 months. I last posted to this blog site 100 days ago talking about tomorrow, and now tomorrow is today!

I will not bore you with the day by day account of my life for these past several months, but it is important to take a few minutes and chronicle what God has done. Honestly, it has been difficult for me to handle the emotional part of it all. I think that I have insulated myself a little bit from the reality of all that has happened. I simply have not allowed myself to stare full faced into the brilliance of God’s provision, direction, and opportunity. My wife has been a bit troubled by my somewhat withdrawn demeanor. I try to explain to her that all is really, really good inside, but I have a hard time showing it. I am still trying to catch up with all that God has given me.

We sold much of our stuff through garage sales this summer. We sold furniture, and clothes, and jewelery. We sold about everything we could sell. My wife is finishing her final year of nursing school, the tuition was due, she would be dropped from the program if we could not come up with the final $500 to make the payment, a friend gave us $500. A neighbor gave us $1,425 to use to pay off an old debt which saved us over $10,000 to settle the account. A friend of mine, who goes to my church and believes in what I am trying to with Guests and Groups and Growth has pledged to donate $500 per month for the next year to my ministry. He gave $750 in month #1…amazing!! we were down to $25 in the bank. We were not due for a pay check for several days. the kids needed school supplies, we needed food, and a friend of mine met me for a beer. We talked about life, and God, and jobs, and purpose and he gave me a $3,000 check on the spot without question, without reward, without expectation of repayment. I have never been so speechless in my whole life. It has been amazing, too amazing for me! We have been so blessed by so many people. Exactly 100 days ago, to the day, I had no idea of how we could move ahead in life, nor did I know how I would be paid in my effort to do church work. I simply had no idea how I would earn a living trying to do what I felt so strongly that God called me to do…

Today, I am a pastor again! I am a full blown, uniquely positioned man of God, wholly intertwined and functioning in the Church of Jesus Christ as full time clergy once again. This is what I am called to do. This is one of the reasons I am on this planet. This is my vocational purpose. I spent nearly four years in the wilderness apart from my call in bitterness, pride, and confusion, but now I am in the wilderness no more! I am smack in the center of what I was created to do. I am Pastor of Connections at Cedar Ridge Christian Church and I am the Primary Catalyst for Vision Fulfillment with the What IF the Church movement. At Cedar Ridge, I am in charge of helping our guests and our groups experience growth through relationship and prayer. At What IF, I get the privilege of working through the little c church to bring a sense of unity in the Big C Church. I get to be a part of a multi-church effort to make a Kingdom sized difference in the Kansas City metro area. I get to build relationships with pastors, church leaders, and inner city ministries. I get to share vision and I get to submit to a mission far greater than anything I could ever do on my own.

My task is to connect people to God, connect people to people, and connect people to purpose. It is exactly what i want to do with my life!

I do not know what tomorrow will hold, but Today, I get to be what God called me to be! I get to be a husband, I get to be a dad, and I get to be a pastor!

Do Not Worry About Tomorrow

A few weeks ago in my mountain top experience with HeartConnexion Ministries I was reminded of who I am! I am a Passionate, Driven, and Worthy man! I walked boldly off the mountain into the church work opportunity that was before me. I walked with a sense of confidence again. I devoted myself to the cause. I worked as part of a team. We worked together and the What if the Church Serve day project was a great success!

That project is now over, my job has been fulfilled, and many hundreds if not thousands of lives have been affected. So, what do I do now? I am jobless once again. My church gave me a great gift by putting me to work for three weeks with pay and giving me the privilege of a temporary staff position. Now that is over. We decided three weeks ago that we would take it one step at a time, and we did.

I have lived the past three weeks with a renewed sense of passion, I was re-aligned with my call, I was reminded of who I am, I completed the job, AND I have no idea what I will do next. My Thank You for the Opportunity emails were sent. I sent a note  to my pastor and let him know that I was hoping and praying for a chance to continue work with him at Cedar Ridge Christian Church. However the reality is that the funds are simply not available at this time.

I am now preparing to take the next step in faith, not knowing how I will be paid. I only know that my purpose is to be involved in church work. It is my Calling! It is what I am supposed to do! It is what I want to do! So I came into my church office this morning ready to move forward without pay because I am certain that God’s will for me is in ministry.  Then my pastor opens the church mail and there was an envelope with MY NAME on it and a check for $1,500! The check came from a ministry support group because my pastor sent in a request several weeks ago with my story.

I was speech-less, I was amazed, it was a clear answer to prayer, and a clear indication that I am to move forward one step at a time in the ministry opportunities that now lie before me.

So, I am learning to trust God daily. I do not know what next month or next year holds, but this I do know: I am called to do outreach focused church work and God will provide the Way! daily…

18 1/2 Hrs of SunShine Pt 2

Again, I was thinking about the www.Whatifthechurch.net Serve Day….

The day started in Hope with abundant sunshine and perfect temperatures. The day ended on an early Sunday Morning nearly 19 hours later in an old church sanctuary, under a huge wooden cross hanging from the ceiling as a group of men; sweaty, hot, sore, and tired labored to clean up the last piles of saw dust and nails. It has now been long dark outside the stained glass windows. The joy and fun of volunteer work had become a distant memory several hours ago. All that remained was the reality that the job had to be completed tonight for the worship service in this building would be starting soon. In just a short while the people who call this church home will show up to praise God as they have done for the past 40 years. But, this time they will be greeted by an all new look and feel!

So as I think back to my time last night, it was the sounds of the moment that impacted me most. In the final minutes of our time together as we completed the clean-up from the preaching platform project I heard so many sounds. Inside the sanctuary, endlessly roared the shrill sounds of compressors and nail guns. The sounds of the spinning saws and drills echoed from the vaulted, wooden beamed ceilings. There were also the sounds of men working together to make it all happen – but outside, in the darkness was the sound of people fighting, the sounds of awful cursing in anger as the people in the apartment complex behind the church tried to hurt with each other with words and  fists, and then as a final reminder of the battle that rages between good and evil, Light and dark, the sound of gun shots cracked in the distance outside the front door of the church.

It was a day that I will not soon forget. It was a day that I want share with others. It was a day that will live on for many years to come because of the things that God started in the SunShine, when the Church comes TOGETHER!

18 1/2 Hrs of SunShine Pt1

www.whatifthechurch.net

It all started at 6:30 am Saturday, May 30, 2009 – It all finished at about 1 am the next day. 18 1/2 Hours of pure WOW!

What if the Church?….

What if the church served together? It was amazing to see people come together in a common purpose as volunteers to meet the needs of others. I saw whole families show up in the inner city of Kansas City with paint brushes and rakes to serve together. I saw old people and young people working together to haul trash. I saw big, gruff construction workers with weather beaten faces working together with young, free-spirited High School kids to move mountains of rock. I received phone calls from people to donate hundreds of dollars for flowers to brighten the landscapes of places surrounded by cement and bricks. I worked with a group of men bonded together by the hope of what could be as we built a new preaching platform in an old church building.  The transformation was amazing! A old stage sagging and rotten in the middle was replaced by an all new hard wood platform where the message of God will be proclaimed for many, many years to come.

But, now that the dust has settled, I realize that the day was about much more than new building projects, and flowers, and paint…The day was about people and the Love of God through people.  The day was about opening doors to the Kingdom of Heaven. I was working in a housing unit for homeless mothers and children. We were painting the dinning area, (think elementary school cafeteria) the new walls were painted in a light shade of blue, the trim was all white. It looked great, it smelled fresh and I said, that I couldn’t even remember the color of the old walls that we just painted…and a little girl who lives in the shelter looked up at me and she said, ”Mr. the old walls were an ugly, grayish color and now they look so beautiful and blue! Thank You!!”

To me this day was about projects to be completed, but to this little girl the day was about adding color and beauty to her life that was so full of darkness and gray.

11 Churches All Working Together!!

Today is the BIG DAY. Check Out www.whatifthechurch.net

This is what I have been working on for the past 3 weeks. I have been part of the leadership team in charge of the SERVE DAY project. TODAY we will have 1,500-2,000 different people from 11 different churches working together at 9 different sites in urban Kansas City Kansas, and Kansas City Missouri. Notice the word, DIFFERENT? These 11 churches are from different denominations, different sizes, different parts of the city, with different visions for reaching people – But TODAY, all 11 churches are serving together as THE CHURCH, with a Big C!!

This project has been a massive under-taking. We have developed a brand new, web-based people system to get everybody organized. It has been a great experience for me to have an office in the church building once again. It has been great to be involved in Kingdom building from inside the church community instead of apart and separate from it. It has been great to be on a team again. It has been great to be doing something as my job/my vocation that more closely aligns with my calling as a Pastor kinda guy.

I am on the way out to support these Urban Ministry Partners now. I will share much more about this incredidible mission in Church unity tonight!! I can’t wait to share the stories!

Mercy more than Rules! (Matthew 12)

Jesus is rolling. His ministry is now in full bloom. Again, He is ticking people off from the religious establishment of His day. Jesus is breaking the rules, and He seems to be doing it on purpose FOR a purpose!

In Matthew Chapter 12  we find Jesus walking through a field of grain on a Sabbath day. Not a big deal, except His guys are picking the grain and eating it. The Religious folks were there (probably following the Jesus gang just to check on their rule keeping abilities) and they caught them; They caught the Jesus guys working on the Sabbath day! Remember breaking the Sabbath was no small little sin, that was one of the Big 10 Commandments. So what did Jesus do to His guys? Did He redirect them in the ways of Holy Rule Keeping? Did He tell them that they were going to hell for that? No! Jesus reminded the religious folks that the heart of God is MERCY, not Sacrifice! Jesus reminded them that God wants their Love, more than their religious actions. Jesus quoted the Old testament Verse  Hosea 6:6 (read the Message version of this verse, for a kicker)

This is the deal for me: How do I balance mercy and rules in my life? It is abundantly clear that Jesus is more interested in Love & Forgivness than He is in rule keeping, and yet Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-20 that He came not to destroy the Law (rules), but instead to fulfill them!?! So here is the challenge: Do we know the rules well enough to know what to do when the rules seem to get in the way of love? It would be easy to just throw away all the rules and say, I don’t need no stinking rules, I am going to live my way! That is NOT what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying that if we knew God, if we loved God, if we lived for God, then we would know when the rules get in the way and when the rules ARE the way.

So what religious things am I doing in my life simply for the sake of religion, and what religious things am I doing in my life because by doing those things I am becoming more like Jesus in my love, and my character, and my mercy? I will ponder, perhaps you should do the same?

Back From the Mountain I Am

I am back from my Breakthrough Retreat, Mountain Top Experience, with Heart Connexion Ministries! Wow, what a trip it has been!! I met God in some very new ways, and I found God waiting for me in a few dark corners of my soul that I forgot was there!

I found something over the past couple of weeks that I didn’t even know I lost. I found ME! I was reminded of who I am. I was reminded that I am more than my W-2 or my 1099-misc, or the lack thereof. I was reminded that as a child of God I was created to change the world. I was reminded that before life and bad decisions and a broken spirit piled debt & shame on me that I was just a little boy in the back yard who was convinced he was a hero with a BB gun killing bad guys and making the world a better place. I was reminded, on my mountain top journey, that I am still that hero, I was simply blinded and confused by my shame.

I am walking taller now. I am walking prouder now. I am walking again with a sense of passion! I actually look forward to the many fights that will surely come my way. I will cower no more.

So I am back. My finances are still a wreck. The fact is that my cleaning business has failed. The fact is that I do not have a job. The fact is that I do not get an unemployment check. The fact is that this is not the best time in the history of America to look for a job. The fact is that my wife still has one year of nursing school to go. The fact is that I have been away from paid, full-time ministry work for many years, BUT I am back! I have remembered who I am! I know what I do and I know how to do it well. I know my purpose and I will find a fit for me very soon. I have a wife and kids who love me, and we will make it through this even if we need to go backwards financially for a few years.

I am a Passionate, Driven, and Worthy man. I will change the world through the Love that God has shown me as I live out MY Life; a Grace Light in the dark world of shame.

scott

Off to the Mountain I Go

It is way past time for me to get out of Dodge and meet God alone. I have been in a rut. It has probably been a rut that I caused, but a rut nonetheless. I am going away on a Breakthrough retreat with an organization called Heart Connexion Ministries. It is an intense time of letting go. I first met with this group 10 days ago. It was an unexpected encounter. I will blame it on God! Far too many coincidences to be anything less than God.

Bottom line: 10 days ago, when we all got together, it was all about leaving our crap at the door. We all have junk in our lives. For some of us the junk is an addiction. For some of us it is a broken relationship. For some of us it is a current relationship that is killing us inside. For some of us it is a crap load of messed up sexual stuff. For some of us it is a past that haunts us daily. For some of us it is simply us that we can seem to get beyond.

10 days ago, 19 of us decided to leave our crap outside the door. Part of the crap we left outside the door was the various masks that we wear in our normal lives. The masks of happiness. The mask of success. The mask of cool. The mask of tough guy. The masks of “you can’t hurt me.” I was uncomfortable without my masks. But I healed a little bit in the vulnerablity of that group.

So Today I leave for a five day retreat. I leave my front door without my masks. I leave not on a pleasant retreat. but a retreat of inward honesty. Who am I? Why am I? how did I get to be who I am? I leave to meet the real me! A few months ago I left for Poland, partly to get away from me. Today I leave not to get away from me, but instead to get closer to me than I have ever been. I hope to meet God inside of me the way I met God in a country far, far from home! I think this is all part of the same long journey that started on a trip to Poland.

Off to the mountain i go…to find me, maskless, hurt, and real.

LifeSmack

every once in a while we get a “LifeSmack”

What is a LifeSmack? It is a term I borrowed from Sully Erna, the main dude of a band called Godsmack. When asked what Godsmack means, Sully said a Godsmack is what happens when God hits you upside the head in such a way that you know it had to be God that hit you.

My first Godsmack happened many years ago when I was 18 years old and in church for the first time in a long time. Godsmacked me and I knew that I needed a savior because i was heading down the wrong road. Godsmacked me again when it was time to choose a college. Godsmacked me again when He called me into ministry. Godsmacked me again when He called me to Kansas City to travel doing inter-denominational work.

I like Godsmacks. Sometimes they hurt, sometimes they seem wierd, they always cause a serious life re-direction, but Godsmacks are good, and good for me.

A LifeSmack is not so good. A LifeSmack is what happens when Lifesmacks you upside the head in a way that you know that there are forces out there beyond our control and that we are just along for the ride. Often times a Lifesmack is caused by our own decisions or in-decisions; the result of which being a snow-ball effect leading to a LifeSmack.

So it has been with me over the past 10 days or so. I was on the recieving end of a LifeSmack. I lost my main source of income. It came as a surprise, but the reality is that, in hindsite, it was not such a surprise. I should have seen it coming my way, but i ignored the reality of it. If you ignore the snowball when it is small – it hurts a lot more when it hits you full grown.

This I know: God is Good. I am safe! my family will survive. We will re-group. We will find our center, our purpose, and our cause and we will move forward more attune to what it is that God wants in our lives. There will be a Godsmack within the LifeSmack and Godsmacks are Good!