During the 25th anniversary celebration of Saddleback Community Church, Pastor Rick Warren laid out his much awaited PEACE plan. This is a very significant initiative for those churches that are seeking to be more externally focused. It’s like my friend Rick Rusaw says, “This wave (to be externally focused) is caused by God that we... Read More

Since I had lots of spare time during the Fantasy Football Draft (Why are we drafting 14 players!?! I thought we were through after 11 rounds!), I perused Jay Lorenzen’s blog (probably my favorite) and downloaded his blog on the US Christian Commission. Anytime we can learn from people who had the ability to mobilize... Read More

Just finishing up an evening of Fantasy Football draft. I seem to be in over my head with the league I am a part of. These guys showed up this evening w/ magazines, cheat-sheets and actually know the first names of these players. I just picked players whose names reminded me of people I knew... Read More

I will end with some practical strategies to address some of the themes I brought up yesterday. I am going to start with two scripture passages. They take the themes and they give us an exhibit A and an exhibit B. Luke gives us two examples of how Jesus invites people into this possible relationship.... Read More

During our Leadership Community in Omaha we heard from Jack Jezreel. Jack has a passionate and prophetic message for followers of Jesus. The following is a rough transcript by Rich Lotterhos on his fist message… Jack started Just Faith (http://www.justfaith.org/) in 1989 while he was the minister of social responsibility at the Church of the... Read More

Yesterday I went to Faith Lutheran Church in Golden. Faith Lutheran is an externally focused church that is part of a Leadership Community that I am part of. After beautiful worship songs, Pastor Peter Morin and Director of Equipping Ministries Director, John Akers sat on a couple of stools and said they were scrapping the... Read More

We are in the midst of the largest natural disaster to hit the United States in recent memory. Our hearts break and we are all deeply saddened as we watch the story unfold on TV. It is a tragedy of epic proportions that calls for the best of responses of God’s people. It is a... Read More

Another great today in Omaha. This is the final gathering of this leadership community. The last gathering was in Big Sur, California, so Ryan McReynolds aptly named this gathering “From Big Sur to Big Sirloins.” The folks of Christ Community Church give a new meaning to midwest hospitality. It has been outstanding! We started the... Read More

We just finished an incredible day of the final gathering of the second Leadership Community for Externally Focused Churches, hosted by Christ Community Church (CCC) in Omaha. We started the day gathering for lunch in the foyer of the church. CCC has an incredible hospitality staff and midwest cooking is their specialty. After lunch we... Read More