Trust takes time…

Mark Batterson was recently on a podcast with Rick Warren, and man you need to check it out.  They were talking about being vulnerable and humble as a pastor, showing vulnerability, etc.  Mark had some great things to say in the midst of some pretty funny technical issues, he was very transparent and seems like a guy I’d want to hang with for sure.

Rick Warren is the man… he had a great quote worth repeating, living, owning :

“Before there can be truth, there has to be trust.  You have to build the trust in order to share the truth, and that takes time.”  Wow.  Seriously this is common sense but has such great implications.  I don’t know that the one-off “you need Jesus” talks are working too well anymore.  I’m wrestling with that.  I know for me personally I want to build relationships with people before I attempt to speak truth into their lives.  How often do we want to short-circuit the trust-building process in relationships and go for the easy kill?  Usually if a leader comes and says they are having trouble getting through to someone they are leading, you could ask them how much they are really investing in the relationship.  Have they built the relational equity to have a venue to speak truth into someone’s life?

How about you?  Is there some relationship that you’re trying to share truth but haven’t built the relational equity to do it?  How’s that working for you?  What examples can you see in your life where taking the time to build trust in a relationship opens the door for you to speak truth?  

How do we share the truth of Christ?  Is it worth the long-term, marathon investment rather than the short-term sprint?  Can both work?  What do you think?

To listen to the podcast, click here

 

it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood…

I went to a really cool symposium (that’s sort of a roundtable-type discussion) at Pantego Bible Church today. The discussion was centered around place-based community in neighborhoods and the like, and how to effectively reach our community.
I’ll post my thoughts tomorrow, it will be hopefully a good discussion, looking forward to your feedback.

 

Simple math…

I’m in a bit of a pickle. A good pickle, actually. And I’m hoping you can help.

I recently moved to a new area of town , and a large reason why we wanted to move there was for strategic reasons, so we could reach the people in that neighborhood, actually. I’ve talked a lot about this at church the last couple of times I spoke. So… This week I got a check for $600 from someone in our church. Basically attached was a note that said “God led us twice to give this, we hope that you can use this to grow your neighborhood ministry.” WOW! Enter the problem… what do I do with this money? How can I stretch this 600 bucks into $10,000 for maximum impact to the Kingdom of God. There are tons of unsuspecting people in my neighborhood, how can that $600 be multiplied to have maximum impact? Multiplication… how can I maximize my potential in my life to reach people for Christ using my God-given abilities and resources?

Truth is, I don’t know yet. But I’m excited, really excited! My wife and I are thinking and praying about this and asking for direction. So, I throw it into your court… give me some ideas… how could I use that $600 for maximum spiritual impact on my neighborhood? Get creative. Some possible ideas thrown out include a BBQ for the neighbors just to get to know them and establish relationship, etc.

What do you think?

Update: I got a really cool link from Heather Z over at National Community Church to an article semi-dealing with this idea… read it here…