Wabash Valley Ministerial Association, Wabash Valley International House of Prayer and Terre Haute Ministries jointly sponsored a summit on city transformation this past Friday.  That in and of itself is historic.  A ministerial group, a house of prayer and a community ministry cooperating!  Now that is what I am talking about!  Way to go God!  Steve Freeman from fusion Ministries led the summit.  www.fusionministry.com

The summit was attended by 50 people representing about 20 congregations.  About 15 pastors attended.

There was great anticipation and excitement about learning together and working together to see God transform our city!

Steve used Ephesians 2 and 3 along with II Chronicles 7:14 to build a foundation for us.

Supernatural transformation takes place when the presence of God changes the spiritual climate of a city.  Transformation is building a resting place for the manifest presence of God by unity and working togethe. It is building your own character; life-style, that is conducive for His presence.

Transformation is the fruit of life-style; not a goal.  It is arrived at by pastors and Christians building relationships based on Kingdom issues and not their little kingdom issues.

Transformation begins when each local church sees itself as a part of the Church of Jesus Christ in the city.  The Church of Terre Haute.  It happens as pastors see themselves as co-pastors in the City Church.

When we asses the condition of our city it is pretty obvious we need the things of heaven to descend here on earth.  This happens as we humbly repent and pursue a holy relationship with God and each other.  The Church is directly responsible for the deplorable condition of the city.  We need to take responsibility for these sinful conditions and not just blame non-believers.

IF we build our house out of holy stones we will reap holiness and transformation in our city.  There are over 600 cities int he world that could be called transformed.  None in the U.S.  Several are making good progress.  They are engaged in what Fusion Ministries calls “A Divine Experiment.”  A time for congregations to seek holiness and direction from God together.

We anticipate doing that here in Terre Haute!  Pray as leaders pursue this course.

Here are some quotes from the participants during the weekend:

“I knew a mouthful of the word of Christ but I did not know the love of Christ until Kairos.”

“We found love, peace, closure, and relationship with Christ I’ll never abandon.”

“Today I had a miracle and became part of God’s family.”

“Unconditional love was just a concept, but we saw it manifested before our eyes.”

“Even a soldier, when he’s surrounded by God’s army, knows when to surrender.”

“When I came to Kairos I ran a gauntlet of love.” [The team lines the hallway as they enter.]

“I found, ‘mi familia de amor’.” “My family of love.”

“My Christianity had grown cold, internalized and self-centered. Some of us were brothers in our heads but now we are brothers spiritually. Our Christianity will no longer be inward but will now be outward. What we’ll take from Kairos: We’re going to change this prison for Christ.”

“I will take away the seed, and it won’t fall on the rocks.”

“The cookies are good, but y’all must have put somethin’ in that makes a man break down and cry in front of his brothers.”

“These were the first letters I’ve received since being in prison.”

“I found that God loves me and a lot of people do, too.”

“My whole life I’ve been searching for love and all I knew was the streets. Now I found in prison a real family that loves me.”

“We found hope, new brothers, that we’re not alone and the unconditional love of Christ. Yeah, we made bad choices, but this showed us that someone loves us and that was just too much for us. We love you!”

“I found a real God.”

“I stopped attending church and this weekend has really pulled me back into it.”

“You showed me a different side – there’s people who love me.”

“I don’t trust my own family or even myself, but I’ve taken the step to become a Christian.”

“This is the first time in 46 years [of living] that I’ve seen the love of God manifested.”

“For 25 years I’ve been a Wiccan, but I cried hard today. It’s because of all you here that I can trust people again. You gave me a reason to hope and to start trusting.”

“I found a waterfall of agape love that doesn’t stop flowing.”

“Every letter brought an abundance of tears.”

“I questioned God’s existence and His love for years. When I turned around and saw a placemat saying, ‘Tony, Jesus loves you’, I know He and his love were real. My middle name is what I go by and it’s ‘Tony’.”

“God is no respecter of persons. What He’s done for others he’ll do for each of us.”

“I came as a Muslim in the oldest order in America and was 2nd in charge. I found more love here than anywhere in the MSTA and I am now a Christian.”

“I’m tired and God’s been chasing and chasing me. Pray for me that I can make my walk.”

“I found spiritual leadership.”

“I found intimacy and friendship.”

“Now God is my attorney and I’m free”

“I’ve been down for 12 years and this morning [Sunday] is the first day I’ve ever woke up happy.”

“[My cellmate] told me I’d be crying during the weekend. I said ‘No, way!’ I started crying on Thursday.

“I’ve been in prison 26 years and have read the Bible from the begining and my favorite verse is 1 John 4:8. My question to God has been, ‘Why is the world the way it is?’ I didn’t know how to love, but the past 3 days His love has been manifested. You loved me like Jesus loves me – unconditionally.”

“I found a new concept: Strangers that would love us unconditionally.”

“I came as an Odinist but didn’t participate to not be deceitful. I watched and listened. I watched you when you weren’t talking and the changes in people and I’m impressed. I don’t make hasty decisions as the last one cost me 60 years. I took the cross and gave up my hammer [of Thor].”

“I found a new love we all share.”

“God speaks to you through different people. I praise God that I know Jeremiah 29:11 for real now. God really does have a plan for me.”

“I’ve been straddling the fence and I found a church family that would teach me about love.”

“I found outward Christianity.”

“I’ve been running from God having a call on my life. God wants me to deliver His word and I promise I will do that.”

“I found love, friendship, happiness and security at Kairos”

“I’ve been an elder in the church for a long time. We say we knew agape love until these men came here – we didn’t have a clue. I just cried like a baby when I got those letters.”

“What I found…Finally, a family.”

“I’ve learned to take action and accept God in my life.”

“I’ve been kicked out of two prisons and I’m the one, the original bad boy. I’ve been locked up for almost 34 years. I got away from church real early and did terrible things in the streets. I’ve learned that God never leaves you and hope God can forgive me. I thank Him for giving me this KAIROS family and hope I can give back.”

“Tomorrow, where will we be when tomorrow comes? My purpose for coming was the food, but when I got here I began lots of thinking and soul searching and I knew something has to give. But now I’ve started a new journey as I gave up my life to Christ today.”

“I built this big old wall up and in 3 days all this agape kept tearing this wall down. I wasn’t going to cry but it happened the first day and I don’t even know why.”

“I found love, family, people who pray for me, and a love that would touch our hearts and take us out of prison”.

For those of you who have been through a spiritual weekend retreat of some type, you understand the amazing power of community.  For me it is always amazing how God uses such a gathering of people. 

I don’t want to go into a lot of details, but through expressions of caring and love you can influence people so much more than with logic and reason!  The old saying, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” is absolutely true in my experience in these kind of weekends.

I was a part of a Kairos team at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility this weekend.  Thirty-eight guys; lots of ladies baking and cooking; lots of kids making place mats; note writing and all kinds of people praying go into this spiritual retreat.  Forty-two guys were invited to participate from all kinds of racial, relitious and economic backgrounds.  They are divided into families.  They hear teaching, pray together, eat together, and share their stories together. 

In the end these guys have some “Jacob kind of moments” where they wrestle with God over all kinds of things in their lives.  Some begin the journey for faith, some are now open to the journey and a lot who had once been on the journey find their way back home.  They will all tell you it was because of the fact that they were shown love and respect.  Wow, don’t we all need that. 

I was touched by a comment of one of the guys at my table.  In talking about relationships and conflict, he said that it was harder dealing with those things in prison because you can’t just choose to “leave them behind.”  You have to deal with guards, the cell mates, the chaplain and even at times the warden!  Those on the outside, he said, can just go a different way!  They can choose another church or choose to leave their family.  Wow, so true and so painful!  What if church folks couldn’t leave?  What if they had to deal with their issues and people who hurt them?  Something I am wrestling with in one of my “Jacob moments!”

My take away from my weekend was that I certainly need to value “family life’ a whole lot more seriously than I do at times.  Wouldn’t it be amazing if we treated some people around us more like a “retreat family group” and less like disposable acquaintences!  Think so.  Father forgive my lack of respect and loving care. 

A team of men are preparing for a spiritual weekend at a men’s prison in Carlisle, IN.  I am one of them.

42 men have been invited to join this gathering from Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon.  The weekend is similar to an Emmaus walk for those of you who are familiar with this type of retreat program.  A prison is obviously a bit different than a campground!  The intensity level is certainly a wee bit higher due to the containment issues everyone has to deal with.

Please pray for Kairos #3.  Your intercession means a lot and will be very much needed as men deal with some pretty important and life changing moments.  Kairos means, time; God’s special time. 

Thanks to all the ladies who pitched in and baked well over 200 dozen chocolate cookies for me!  Over 60,000 cookies will be used to express love over this weekend. 

Stay tuned to the blog and follow the experience with me.

Hey check this out, Jack Fox in Memphis!

Yeah, he is leading a session sharing his learning from Art Reach here in the Haute.

If you’re interested in more information head over to Jack’s contact page and let him know.

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Leveraging Your Past

Too Small to Care?

35 yrs of silence on his abuse; trying to see the other side of the tapestry

Boarding school for missionary kids; 700 miles from home; 50 kids

17 times a week he was beaten; on average

A vengeful and powerful God is what he saw; God must hate me

Sexual abuse in addition; both staff and older children

From a victim to a victor

Compassion International has been his fight

Poverty and abuse speak the same language; give up!

Leadership can be launched by pain and sorrow.

Forgiveness is giving up the right for revenge.

New Song in Irvine, CA                 Christ-Community-Cause

The Monkey & The Fish

Consumeristic church comes from the homogenous unit stuff of church growth; targeting a certain audience

Third Culture Leader:  adaptation, painful adaptation

• “Third culture is the mindset and will to love, learn, and serve in any culture, even in the midst of pain and discomfort.” – Dave Gibbons

Third Culture actions:

• Focused on the fringe; early adopters; zealots; misfits
• Failure is success to God; your resonance ; your voice; your weakness; world understands suffering (a changed metric)
• Weakness guides us more than our success
• Relationships trump vision; with God and others (only one vision; love God and our neighbor)
• Obedience is more important than passion
• Four acts:
• deeper collaboration; other churches, cities, nations
• communal living; together; community
• prayer; power of the Holy Spirit
• radical sacrifice for the outsider; other culture

Leading people to the prodigal God

Lack of spiritual vitality is the key problem in the church today.

• Spiritual deadness

The parable is to address the people in the church; elder brother, religious leader

The main point; both the younger and the elder brother are alienated from the father

• One tries for the father money by disobedience and demand
• The other by being good

Spiritual deadness is a reliance on religion and not the gospel (elder brothers); performance based

• Believe God owes them; angry over unanswered prayers

Need a new level of repentance and rejoicing (renewal)

• Repentance for the reasons for your doing right
• Rejoice at the redemption of the lost

Practical steps:

1.  You the leader work this out in your heart

2.  Move beyond principles to the gospel (Jesus)

3.  Get a group of leaders together and go through The Prodigal God

4.  Work it into your congregation by the leaders you trained; or the whole book through the church

5.  Pray for renewal

Manage Differently Now

Are you changing as fast as the world around you; on the vanguard or the old guard?

We are losing market share out of apathy

Unprecedented changes bring unprecedented opportunity

Our problem is inertia; forward or backward but can’t stand still

Vision-strategy-policy-practice-habit

• organizational entropy
• re-inventing is the key

Four challenges:

1.  Overcome the temptation to take refuge in denial

• Face the facts
• Usually dismiss
• Rationalize
• Mitigate
• Then confrontation

2.  Generate strategic options

• Listen to the renegades
• Churches should be the most adaptive and resilient organizations in the world

3.  Deconstruct your core beliefs (practices)

4. Get rid of an autocratic leadership model

• Open source leadership and even sermons!

This Sunday I will be teaching on our role as followers of Jesus and how it relates to our political context.  Things aren’t what they used to be, “We aren’t in Kansas anymore Todo!” 

Our nation is now more than ever a post-Christian context.  Being a follower of Jesus is no longer the common ground we have as Americans.  What does that mean for us now?  It is a challenge we must rise to and not retreat from.

There is a section in the Evangelical Manifesto pages 14-18 in particular.  http://www.anevangelicalmanifesto.com/manifesto.php  that give us some challenges in how to relate politically in a new and challenging way.

A Civil Square is a place where we as followers of Jesus can engage in the political arena on a level American field of conversation.  My faith is a part of who I am as an American.  That faith is one of many in America, but it is one.  Take your faith seriously and don’t back down from who you are as an American Citizen.

However, this is America, and we value the freedom of “all religions.”  That has a high price tag.  Don’t take that for granted either!  Not all nations are so inclined to value this freedom to worship as we choose.