The Final Week

Hard to believe that the main portion of the clergy renewal program is winding down. For our final week away, we'll spend time at Cedar Campus (click the name for a link to the camp's website). Every year for the past 7 years we have attended this retreat for pastors' families. It has proven to be a very refreshing place to experience God's creation, God's Word, and God's people. This year's speaker is Rev. Ben Patterson, Dean of the Chapel at Westmont College in California.

We thank you so much for your many prayers and kind words of the program and we look forward to arriving in Orange City late (very late) on Friday, July 20. I'll be back in the pulpit on July 22, with a message on Mark 6.

June 30 & July 3 – Faith Reformed, Dyer

“A great commitment to the great commandment and the great commission will grow a great church.” (Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Church)

With 3,000 attending 4 weekend services, Faith Reformed is both the fastest growing and largest congregation in the Reformed Church in America east of the Mississippi. The only larger RCA congregation is likely the Crystal Cathedral.

The short history: Rev. Bob Bouwer (1984 NWC and 1988 Western Seminary grad; married to Laurie) is the Senior Pastor and has been at Faith since the early 1990s. Faith made a strategic decision to relocate from South Holland, Illinois, to Dyer, Indiana, where many of their own people were moving to. But in the move they made a clear and strategic vision:

Reaching the disconnected; growing the connected.

They made it their aim to do church differently – with everything fixed on leading people to Christ and growing them to be sent out to make a difference. They unashamedly tried to follow a Willow Creek model with reformed theological footings, believing that reformed theology, rightly understood, provides an excellent basis for evangelism and growth, and so had much to offer the contemporary model.

Faith today: on the weekend, Faith has four services (Saturday at 6:00 p.m., and Sunday at 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00). Sunday school happens during each service. Deeper teaching and biblical exposition happens on Wednesday evening, with about 400-600 people in attendance. Various small groups and “mini-churches” meet throughout the week.

I spent Saturday evening at Faith and all of Tuesday with their staff, especially Bob Bouwer, Charlie Contreras (NW grad and Director of Spiritual Formation), and Larry Bolt (Executive Director).

Here are some things I loved and learned from Faith (again, a shorter version) – each of these begins with a statement that debunks some common myths of mega churches (from my perspective):

Worship:
Worshiping with a larger number of people does not have to be impersonal and distant. There are 600-800 at each service, but the layout does not make you feel far from the platform or far from each other. Maybe it was because I knew Bob or because I knew a few people present, but there was a generous atmosphere of connection between the speakers and the people. Bob is a communicator first, and his preaching is winsome and personal and relevant on the weekend. While not diverse in color, Faith is quite diverse in age. All services are identical and quite contemporary.

Spiritual Formation:
Discipleship in a huge church does not mean superfluous piety or shallow teaching. There are many classes for people to attend. Tuesday evening the entire facility is given over to recovery ministries (addictions, divorce, abuse, etc.). Wednesday night’s focus on deeper teaching is often preceded with a community meal.

But the bedrock of their discipleship ministry is “Living Fire” (their version of Leaders for the Harvest). Larry Bolt, who has helped with this ministry, gave me story after story of life-change in people’s lives. It’s their aim to multiply this ministry many times. Having been through year 1 twice myself, and having seen it in more advanced stages in three other churches, I think we’ve got to have as many people as possible at Trinity go through at least year 1. In 2007-08, we’ll also be taking 8-10 people through year 2.

Mission:
Commitment to missions and local ministry expansion are not mutually exclusive. One criticism people often level at building programs or local church growth is that they give less to missions. At Faith, the opposite is true. Yes, they did cut back for a time so they could get their ministry focused, but the floodgates are coming open in amazing ways that would never have happened before. In their building program they committed 10% to three specific ministries.

In overall mission giving, they have focused on three strategic partnerships: one with an urban ministry in Chicago, one with a rural ministry addressing poverty, and one with international ministry focused on community involvement. In each place they commit both dollars and sending teams. While I was at the management team meeting, they were considering another strategic relationship with World Vision, focusing on addressing AIDS in Africa through a Community Partnership (child sponsorship, clean water development, education, and economic micro loans).

Facility Vision: The WOW factor
Wow facilities do not have to break the bank. To say Faith’s facility is amazing is a slight understatement. You can see it on Google Map’s satellite feature and get a grasp of size. Part of their value in relocating was to have a “wow” factor in facility, believing that beauty should be incorporated into all they did. They refused to be unrealistic in terms of debt and overextending themselves, but still wanted to the facility to be first-rate.

They started with worship and children’s space (much like Third, Pella did), and added in offices and other areas later. Some other features include an atrium café and coffee bar, book store, nurseries with closed-circuit TVs to show what is going on in each room, and lots of exterior glass showering natural light into gathering spaces.

I included a number of pictures below, including parts of their third phase, which opens in a few weeks.

One of the things that surprised me the most about facility was the cost. This is brand new construction in the Chicago region with union labor. My assumption was that it would be $150-200 per square foot. Larry Bolt walked me through the numbers and shared that none of Faith’s building has exceeded $105 per foot.

Leadership Structures
Faith’s structure has similarities and differences with Trinity’s. Again, I won’t bore the blog with too many details, but I did notice some trends in churches that are trying to be missional and visionary. The board first of all owns the mission and vision, answering the question, “Why do we exist?” Once the mission and vision are owned by the board, decision-making is given to the lay leaders, teams, and staff to work out the details and carry out mission.

In each of these churches I’ve been so blessed to spend so much valuable time with key leaders and I am so grateful to each congregation for their warm welcome.

Next up:
Sabbatical break-in: Northwestern Presidential Search Committee Interviews.
The programs concludes with a family week at a clergy pastor’s family retreat, and I’m back in the pulpit July 22.

July 1 & 2 – Living Springs Community Church

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:38)

After a few days of personal renewal and reflection, it was time to relocate to Wisconsin. The weekend of June 30-July 3 I spent visiting two churches in Chicago area: Living Springs in Glenwood, IL, and Faith Reformed in Dyer, IN.

I attended Sunday morning worship at Living Springs. This church is pastored by Dave Izenbart (married to Kristen; boys Joshua and Caleb). Dave is a grad of NWC (89) and Fuller (93), and has served LSCC since 1993.

Living Springs’ story: They relocated several years ago from a small building in a tight neighborhood to 28 acres of land just a few blocks away. The goal of the move was to stay in their geography while enhancing their ability to reach their current transitioning neighborhood – one of the few south suburban areas where blacks and whites were more integrated.

They worship in two identical morning worship services at 9 and 10:30 a.m., with Sunday school during the first service. Worship is basically contemporary, but with some hymns. Lots of instruments fill the air. They worship around 600 people, so they are about the same size as Trinity, perhaps a little larger.

I also spent several hours on July 2 with their staff, but not until David and I did a careful inspection of a Pete Dye designed golf course (Coyote Run). [Golf update: 101, with only one lost ball.]

Here is some of what I loved and learned from LSCC:

Facility:
- Balanced needs and wants with cost realities: they did the most they could with what they had, and it serves them very well. Essentially a metal building with brick and block façade, it has nice curb appeal. The setting feels like an oasis on the edge of the city. Worship is in the gym, and yes, it feels like a gym with a worship stage, but it gets the job done nicely.
- First floor has nice gathering space, with a cafe-style fellowship area and a small bookstore. A full-size baptismal fountain leads the way into the worship area. (Yes, they do adult immersion a fare amount.) There is also a prayer room and adult ed space, along with nursery and preschool.
- Second floor contains offices, children, and youth areas. Youth area includes stage and small kitchen area.
- 28 acres is a lot of space! They have a master plan for future building, but have also built a gazebo and one ball field. Their summer outreach includes a number of sports-related outdoor activities. A lovely forest borders the far edge leading to a creek and they plan to put a prayer walk area in that space.

Worship:
My first impression was “Wow, these people really love each other.” I was there plenty early and watched people enter the facility. They sought out one another with great delight. People who didn’t know me welcomed me with joy. It may seem like a small thing, since Trinity does this pretty well, but one thing I noticed in almost all the churches I visited this sabbatical is how little people actually embraced or talked to one another. In many churches, worshipers entered, observed worship, and left. Here, it seemed people looked for others to meet, embraced the people around them, and lingered long after worship.

My second impression was “Wow, people sing.” In a lot of churches I visited, it was hard to hear people singing. Maybe it was the acoustics of a gym, but it was also more. There was an aliveness in the place that was unmistakable.

My third impression was “I could be on that praise team.” Not because they couldn’t sing (like me), but because they were welcoming by their eyes and actions that I was one of them.

My biggest impression by far was the incredible diversity within the church. Yes, it was mostly white, but there were many African Americans, Asians, and some Hispanics. They have made a commitment to be inclusive of all races and are accomplishing it better than most Midwest RCA churches. An African American woman staff member led the prayers, and the next hire will be an Associate Pastor from an ethnic group of the church’s region, and David’s 11th Commandment is “Thou Shalt Have the Races of the Church on the Platform Each week.”

Charismatic atmosphere and grounded biblical teaching: David is preaching “The Old Testament Challenge” material and had a tremendous message on Elijah. LSCC does not have another midweek teaching time, so Sunday morning is both seeker sensitive and biblically deep – proof that a growing church does not have to be on the shallow side of things to grow.

Prayer:
It is obvious that this church has an atmosphere of prayer. It’s present in all aspects of the church’s life. It is part of this church’s history as well. Even the youth group places a high value on prayer ministry. Rich Albrecth (former Trinity intern with Cory Grimm) leads the youth ministry. He said, “I know I’ve messed up these kids when they’d rather go to prayer weekend than to a mosh pit at a Christian concert.” The congregation occasionally sends people to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (which folks at Third Peall do, too).

Connecting Life and Ministry together:
Two things stand out from how LVSS is growing people in faith.

One is the connection across the board in what they are doing. They connect people’s walk with God on four levels: worship, Sunday School, small groups, and personal devotions. On each of those levels, they are doing the same thing. For example, David preached on Elijah, a Sunday school class focuses in-depth on Elijah, the small groups had guides for Elijah, and the bulletin includes daily readings for Elijah this week.

A second arena is the emphasis on “Living Fire,” their name for our Leaders for the Harvest ministry. They have done it for a few years more than Trinity and are seeing people go through all three years. With Faith, Dyer, they are leading over 70 people a year through this ministry in their region.

Leadership Structure and Style:
Again, I won’t bore the blog with too many details here. They have a structure similar to ours and are trying to find their way through some transitions. One significant recent change is the hiring of a full-time executive director of ministry and operations (a man coming out of management in a computer business). This is just three months old and it will be good to see this develop over the next year.

The one thing I think we could transfer from their system to ours right now is how care elders are assigned. Because they place a high value on small groups, elders are assigned based on small groups. Those not in small groups are still assigned to individual elders.

Next blog update: Faith Reformed, Dyer, Indiana.