May 30th, My incredible city of Charleston, SC erupted into chaos. What started as a simple protest against the murder of George Floyd turned into riots and looting. This broke my heart seeing it unfold on the news. I was supposed to preach on John the Baptist the next morning but I could not in good conscience let this moment go by without addressing it. I reached out to one of my pastor buddies who happens to be a black pastor in downtown Charleston and asked for counsel and prayer. I’m a white southern baptist preacher in a small rural town outside Charleston. What can I do? He replied that it isn’t until the white pastors speak out, any real change can happen. So, I went to my office and penned a new sermon titled racial reconciliation. You can watch it here.

Well as you know, our country has gone from bad to worse. I hurt for my black brothers and sisters. I was all in on the protests in the beginning. I was even a defender of Black Lives Matter…however I believe the intent should have been Black Lives Matter Too. The protests have moved from marches to mobs, from shouting to looting, from fiery rhetoric to fires in the streets. They are tearing down statues that have nothing to do with racial injustice, they are choosing to focus all of their anger on all police officers rather than fight for reform. The movement has been hijacked. It is no longer about race…it is about anarchy.

Yesterday I had one of our members (who is a police officer) stand in the gap as we prayed not only for him but all of the officers that have a difficult job that just got even more deadly. I believe that ALL lives do matter. I believe as a Christian we need to be pro life. That begins in the womb BUT doesn’t stop until we are in the grave.

I believe all pastors, red and yellow, black and white need to be speaking out, no shouting out when those who are charged with protecting us, harm us. I believe that all pastors (including our black brothers and sisters) need to speak out against the chaos that is going on, chaos that will rob them of what they are after and that is true reform. Real change.

In the meantime…I will not take up arms. I will kneel…not at the national anthem. I will kneel and pray for my city. My city is hurting. I will offer a cup of coffee and listening ear to those who disagree with me and I them. I will preach Gods word faithfully and boldly because though justice is what everyone is crying out for…what we need is reconciliation. To be reconciled with God.

Then, and only then will this pain subside.

So, March 22nd 2020 Live Oak Church had a great day. We installed our Elders and Deacons and were beginning a great surge forward with momentum. Live Oak Church didn’t explode onto the scene. It has been a slow and sluggish path. However, we were finally gaining some momentum…then it hit.

The governor got on TV and strongly suggested of groups no more than 10 to meet together because of this growing pandemic called Covid-19.

The next week we were having church online…we thought it might last 2-4 weeks. It lasted 12. We had to rethink Life Groups…if you bought stock in Zoom on March 21st you made a fortune. We had to rethink worship. We had to rethink connection. We basically had to Re Launch Live Oak Church digitally.

Then it happened. The governor got back on TV and gave us permission to get back to life. That Sunday was a glorious day! We actually had as many as we did before we shut down! For three Sundays it seemed like we were going to get back to normal. We were about to relaunch our kids ministry when that blasted governor got back on TV. The cases spiked. Today we had to go BACK to worship online.

God’s word says Hope deferred makes the heart sick…well man I am sick. It is difficult because I don’t know how to strategize this. There is no whiteboard session that can figure this out. We don’t know how long this will affect us. We don’t know what it will do to the economy of our congregation so we have to be extra cautious spending money, which is frustrating because the needs are growing in our community as well.

When you train to be a church planter, you are trained to be flexible…you gotta be like Gumby. However, nothing has trained us for this. This goes beyond staffing issues, building issues, conflict issues. This is Covid-19.

The only thing that makes me not quit and move to Greenland is that this didn’t catch God off guard. So, there must be a plan in it? Right? So, what do we do?

1. Remember God is sovereign
2. Remember that I am not and am prone to overthinking
3. Remember to plan with pencil not with pen
4. Remember the mission is to Love God Love People and Live Boldly so do that however you can do that, whenever you can do that, wherever you can do that.

So I am sitting here watching MacGyver (the new one).  I was a huge fan of the old series…I used to watch it when I was a kid.  My dad got me a swiss army knife just like the character on the show.  I was immensely disappointed when I realized that there really weren’t any emergencies that took place in my life that required that perfect little tool.  I still have one to this day, just in case I have to turn a fountain pen into a mac computer. However, the knife is the most compact and efficient tool that is out there.

Sitting here though, made me think of what are my emergency essentials that I keep with me…in ministry.  What is my swiss army ministry kit?

1. My bible – Every year I get a new one. Fresh and ready for new highlights, underlines and notes in the margins.
2. A journal – Sometimes I write thoughts in there, sermon ideas, doodles, prayers, notes from meetings…whatever.  It stimulates the creativity and is vital.
3. A good pen – I have plenty of junk pens but if you really want to enjoy a good journal, you have to use a good pen.  On the cheaper side I use gel pens, however I was given a good Mont Blanc as a gift that I love writing with.
4. 2 books – I try to keep a book on ministry or theology and a book on leadership at all times.  They both keep me sharp and thinking.

That is what is in my ministry tool kit.  What about yours?

 

As I have stated we follow the systems/structure of the Purpose Driven model created by Rick Warren at Saddleback church.  In that model Warren uses concentric circles to illustrate the levels of commitment to the local church related to the programs directed toward that audience.  The goal is to move the people on the outlying circles to the inner circle.  The order goes, Community, Crowd, Church, Committed and Core.

Our ministry has programmed to all of these circles to some degree with a hope that some students will move from the Community to the Core over time.

For the Community  we offer community events like “Movies Under the Oaks” – this is a done outside and we choose good movies but not necessarily “christian” movies.  We also do several Family Events throughout the year.  Our Fall Festival on Halloween night is a huge community even as is our Easter Egg drop.  We are a presence at the HS football games and in other community festivals and events.

For the Crowd we focus on Campus Ministry.  At our HS we have a weekly study called “Jesus Pizza”. It is exactly what it sounds like…pizza and a bible study.  At our MS campuses we do a lunch study once a month and bring in Chickfila and do some games and bible study.

For the Church we have Surge worship which is our “big” meeting.  Music, relevant teaching and plenty of hang time.  We also offer a recovery program for teens called The Landing.  This program can be a 1st step into the church for teens who are struggling with addiction, cutting, self esteem issues etc.

For the Committed we have small groups that are age and gender specific, Sunday morning bible study and Huddles which is a part of our Surge worship experience.

For the Core we encourage our teens to be the church and serve the church.  They help in the kids ministry, tech ministry and other areas as needed.  We are also launching a leadership study for a few teens that show next level skills.

That is our process for striving to connect with the random kid in the school and move them toward commitment to the gospel and the church.

 

You can tell a lot about an organization by what they value. Walmart values cheap goods.  Chickfila values customer service.

Our Values at Surge help guide us and dictate what we do.  We used the name of our ministry as the acronym.

S – Safe Place – the term sanctuary means a place of safety.  Our ministry is a bully free zone.  Many students come from homes where they are berated by their parents, bullied at school and picked on by their siblings…we make sure this is one place where they are safe.

U – Understanding Culture – We strive to know what is going on…I passed young and cool a long time ago (actually I was never cool anyway) but we will want to know the landscape that our audience lives in so that we may minister more effectively.

R – Relentless pursuit of the lost – We believe that teens in our culture are what the International Mission Board refers to as an unreached people group…in that less that 2% are reached with the gospel.  That may be an exaggeration but not by much.  We are not satisfied until all students have had the opportunity to hear the gospel.

G – Growth of the Spirit – We encourage discipleship through Bible study, mentoring and worship.

E – Exciting environments – From the front door to the bathrooms we strive to make sure that the youth ministry environments are excellent.  We don’t have leftover couches and old tv’s sitting on folding tables.  We don’t do it at all if we can’t do it with excellence.

As students come through our ministry we hope that these values are evident.  We evaluate them several times a year and are not afraid to change, add or subtract something from our ministry if it begins to deviate from our values.