This weekend I’m launching a new 2-part series entitled, “Letters to the New President”
There is SO MUCH BUZZ politically everywhere I go. This might be the most contested race to the White House ever! This past week I traveled to Washington, DC to bring Keystone the sights and sounds of our nation’s capital… You won’t want to miss the launch of this new series this weekend!
There are some great message series from other pastors I want to point you to that I have enjoyed:
- Ed Young: Politicked? Hard-hitting, creative series.
- Andy Stanley: Letters to the Next President We were so inspired by this name that we contacted the great people at Northpoint Community Church and modified it for our series. Although our content is completely different, we absolutely loved the name!
- John Piper also spoke in 2005 regarding Subjection to God and State.
These pastors took different angles and hot opinions that were helpful as I researched Romans 13.
I’m so honored that my friend, Buddy Cremeans, has aired PART 2 of our interview in Cremeans Couch. You can check it out here. Last week, my great friend Buddy Cremeans aired PART 1 of an interview taped this past year for his infamous Cremeans Couch. Don’t you think my shirt looks a little ‘puffy?’
For context, ask someone about obscure Seinfeld references and mention the ‘puffy shirt’ episode.
Many, many Christian leaders and great volunteers check out Buddy’s words of wisdom… At Keystone, we believe we should always make the most out of opportunities to expand our influence for Christ. This is one of those great opportunities! Make sure to hop onto his website and let him know what you feel God showing you through the interview!
You have seen it. I have too. Building after building, lining Main Street in Everytown, America. So many beautiful reminders of a simple faith of our forefathers stand almost empty on any given Sunday. There are many reasons… but I want to highlight ONE: DISS-UNITY.
Disunity is really the process of DISSING UNITY.
As I wrote earlier, UNITY is a powerful force for the early church. You can read throughout the New Testament and discover the importance of unity. It was Jesus’ prayer for the church! See John 17:20 .
My friend, Buddy Cremeans, made this comment in our interview: We’re always asking Jesus to answer our prayers… it would be nice if we answered his prayer – just once! (see about 6:00 in the interview & let it roll)
Jesus desired for us to experience unity as Christians. Far too often, we DISS the notion of unity and pick fights with each other. People AVOID churches that are fighting! Why would a couple about to lose their marriage seek answers from a dysfunctional church family?
So many of us do not take this call to unity seriously. Instead, we (insider Christians) almost run to the fight. We get geared up for a nasty business meeting… we suddenly find passion as we load our character assassin rifles with smears and half truths in BLOGLAND. Or, we GOSSIP about others… tearing them down so that we might feel a little better about ourselves.
I’m passionate about unity. It breaks my heart to DISS UNITY.
- UNITY embraces our DIVERSITY and rejects DIVISION.
- UNITY not UNIFORMITY
- UNITY is a body, a team, with all its diversity pointed in the same direction with the same mission!
More on all this later…
Brian Burton here. I wanted to take a moment and let you guys know that our pastor, Brandon Thomas, has the great honor of being featured on an influential blog among pastors across the United States.
Cremeans Couch is a video interview segment on the blog of Buddy Cremeans (Pastor of NorthwayChurch.tv in upstate New York). CC features a wide variety of inspirational leaders that have a passion for leadership and for the future of the church. The goal of CC is to bring the “behind the scenes stuff” about leadership that you don’t hear at conferences to the blogging world.
Go check it out!
This past Wednesday night we had our all-church prayer gathering. It was incredible!
Emerging from that time with God and fellow Keystoners, I had the STRONG sense that I needed to change something up for this weekend. I prayed about it, got great input from Susan… and I’m definitely going for it!
Are you ready for a curve ball? Don’t miss this weekend!
Every weekend at Keystone is unique, and I want to encourage you to bring your friends more than ever before as we go WHEREVER God leads us together.
See you this weekend!
Brandon
Today at lunch I sat across the table from a very wise, strong leader who has ‘been there, done that’ for many, many years. The topic of UNITY in the church came up.
With tears in his eyes, choking on emotion (and maybe a small bite of his taco) he said this: “Unity. At the end of the day, that’s all we got!”
I loved his passion. AND I believe he is right. UNITY is an organizing principle for the local church. It is a pillar that the mission of the church should be built upon.
This post begins a series of talks on UNITY… I love this topic!!! To get you started, READ THIS:
Ephesians 4:3
John 17:20
When you have a holy roar growling inside your soul, then you begin to share and implement that vision – you must then be ready to DEFEND the vision!
I’m by nature a positive guy. If I were a football coach (shudder the thought), I would most likely favor a high-powered offensive attack. I don’t think in terms of DEFENSE. Yet, DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS! Every offense needs a great defense.
Through bone-crushing life experiences, God directed me to take great care in creating structures that PROTECT the vision of the church. These structures and strategies pay greatest dividends when the vision is under attack.
For Example:
We set clear expectations for our members: We passionately organize around the Acts 6 and Ephesians 4 models… a healthy, growing church should not depend on the called, set-apart pastoral leaders for day-to-day ministerial care. [there, I said it!] We teach our members at Keystone that the greatest power for personal care lies in our members exercising their gifts. That means that if your community group visits you in the hospital – Keystone Church was there! This is a clear expectation – one that our members sign off on when they join
We defend the vision in our BUDGET: This is especially vivid in my mind, as we are working to prepare our 2009 financial budget. At Keystone, we do not spend money outside of the vision of our church. This can be especially tricky, because almost every great ministry idea can be rationalized and twisted to ‘fit into your vision. We avoid that slippery slope by be incredibly FOCUSED in our spending. Here’s how it works for us: *saving lives is numero uno… introducing people to Jesus through our worship experience and family environment. That’s where we excitedly invest. Other areas of the church are expected to pay for themselves. If we don’t watch it, we’ll become just like the federal government… tons of special projects hidden in the numbers that don’t advance the ultimate vision.
I defend the vision in my messages: God has released me to release others who aren’t into our vision. Sometimes God will put a word in my heart that would particularly challenge those who have a divergent vision from ours (the ‘go deeper’ crowd, the ‘preach only verse-by-verse’ crowd, the ‘why didn’t we vote on that’ crowd, etc…). There are SO MANY churches that gravitate to these different groups, and we say: Go there! Stop wasting your God-given passion and enthusiasm on a vision you don’t embrace – go find the church you can LOVE.
I think this is about all the preaching on vision I have for now…
When God gives you that HOLY ROAR… or he unites you with a God-given vision, it’s time to SHARE IT! I have a lot of pastor-friends who say, “SPRAY IT!”
Here are a couple of ways that I CAST the vision at Keystone:
- Almost every message… my talks will always have some thread of the vision of our church. That may include a specific challenge to our people to be faithful to the vision, or it may be a challenge to those who would attack that vision
- In conversations... This vision is IN ME. I will always give the vision ‘legs’ in personal conversations. For example, “You just joined – are you serving? C’mon, God brought you here to make a difference, don’t miss this great opportunity!” I talk about the vision of serving, giving, sacrificing all the time!
- In my leadership… This includes my staff. EVERY PERSON who represents me on this staff must be ABSOLUTELY sold out on our vision. That is a non-negotiable prerequisite for serving at Keystone. Sometimes I will teach nuances of our vision to our staff
- Through the stories… we have so many TANGIBLE examples of the power of God’s vision for us that it would be a sin not to share them.
These are a few ways we cast the vision here at Keystone… NEXT: Defending the vision!
I want to spend a few BLOG MOMENTS to discuss THE VISION (particularly at Keystone). This will be a series of short articles expressing my heart for VISION.
Proverbs 29:18 says (paraphrased), “Where there is no vision, the people perish”
The price is high.
We’re seeing the destructive nature of ‘vision-less’ leadership in the wake of our economic tsunami… Many of our elected leaders are covering their ‘backsides’ in an attempt to whitewash their lack of vision. Finger-pointing, blame-game, vitriolic partisan politics are devastating the sense of clear vision in our nation’s capital. I don’t know about you, but it’s driving me CRAZY.
Yet, capital hill is not the church. I am more disturbed by a lack of vision within the church.
We began Keystone Church almost 4 years ago in the deep belief that God wanted a church that BELIEVED something, SAW something, and was willing to DO something.
We believed God was who he said he was (in his entirety, as revealed in Scripture) and we wanted ALL OF HIM! For example, we believe that God loves sinners, inhabits worship, and wants to bring us together.
We could SEE the thousands of rooftops in this community. We could see the thousands of lives that needed the touch of God in their lives. We could see thousands of marriages failing, who needed the power of God for their lives…
We had to do something about it. We show up early and stay late. We aren’t consumed with ‘Easter dresses & Sunday ties’ but rather donned our ‘Keystone volunteer’ shirts and sweated hard to create a space for others to experience God.
I could go on… and I will… keep your eyes open!