One simple thing will make a big difference in the life of an at-risk child: One-on-one, positive attention from a responsible, caring adult. Kids Hope USA is the catalyst for an expanding network of church/school partnerships. These partnerships take on the enormous challenge of kids at risk—One Child, One Hour, One Church, One School at a time—through one-on-one mentoring relationships.

Our Kids Hope Director (Jeff Nordrum) here at Hope Summit recently passed on an email from Becky, she’s one of our volunteer mentors…

When I agreed to be a Kids Hope mentor, I was trying to give back to God. I was being authentic when I decided to be a mentor. I had been a public school teacher in the primary grades and also an in-school suspension teacher for the upper elementary grades. I thought this was an area I could help someone. Little did I know that God had plans for me.

I went throught the training and met with the teacher for the first grade. Our meeting was positive and we agreed on the goals we would work on. Next on the agenda was the meeting with the student. I finally met Adam—my first time seeing the young boy was in a busy noisy classroom. He was kneeling in his chair, bending over the table reaching across to the other side telling the others how to do the assignment(which was a no-no). His shoes were nowhere to be found, one sock was on and the other was stuffed into the lost shoe. My first goal was to get Adam to keep his shoes on for most of the day. Coming from the mountains in the south, I totally understood that some people learn better with their shoes off but I dauntingly approached my task with care and enthusiasm.

Adam and I went to the library after spending a half an hour of our hour time looking for his shoes with half his group helping us which happened for about the first six to eight weeks. It only took me most of a year to get Adam to keep his shoes on during school.

After we made it to the library I found a young man that was polite, excited about school and learning—especially reading. I didn’t expect a first grader to be reading with comprehension the books Adam was enjoying. We started in on chapter books about the magic schoolbus and Adam read them in one sitting. He advanced quickly and really understood each book he read. During the next 5 years we progressed to historical books about the revolutionary war period and Adam was engrossed with some of the people he met while reading.

As each year progressed, I learned that Adam enjoys games like Connect Four, Scrabble (which he tried to cheat at but as he grew older I stopped letting him), and any others I would challenge him with. It got to the point I was always losing.

Adam and his family were very positive and excited to be involved with Kids Hope. Adam and his siblings came to the parties that Hope Summit would have for the Kids Hope Kids always having a great time. During a couple of the summers, Scott and I would take him to the little league games to watch Spencer Carey play. He and Spencer’s brother, Jeremy, would shag balls. Adam had never learned to catch a ball with a mitt. Jeremy worked with him to learn this skill. Adam enjoyed going to the little league games and to the movies.

He turned into a young man I can be proud of. I still see Adam occassionally when we are out and about the city of Rochester. Adam carefully selects his friendships, cares about his grades and has set life goals he wishes to achieve.

I went into Kids Hope trying to give back; and God and Adam turned the tables on me. Adam continuously keeps giving back to me. When I am down, God puts Adam back into my life for a boost and I sail again for a while. Hopefully, Adam feels the same about me. He will always be a friend to me that I will cherish for as long as I am able to remember each of our moments. This was a effort of love that I will always be so glad that I was able to participate in. There is never any regret–Adam is a young man I am so proud of. Too bad he had to grow up!

If you attend Hope Summit and you’d like to be a mentor contact us at the church office here.

If you are a pastor and interested in partnering with Kids Hope USA in your city you can visit their website here.

• How many conversations have you have with a new convert where you painstakingly, step by step, taught them how to obey Jesus’ commandments in their everyday life?
• How many conversations have you had like that in the last 6 months?
• How many conversations have you had in meetings or gatherings about, attendance, worship preferences, seating capacity, buildings, finances, vision, infrastructure, staff, property maintenance, parking lots, policies, curriculum, volunteer recruitment, and videos for worship services?

He goes on to say, “Its very simple to understand why evangelical churches in America don’t crank out disciples. IT’S BECAUSE WE TAKE OUR BEST LEADERS AND STICK THEM IN A ROOM! Instead the best spiritual leaders need to be working with the baby converts!”

If you haven’t heard this talk you you gotta take 30 minutes and listen.  Brian has also authored two books and you can buy them here:

Second Guessing God – Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan
Getting Rid of the Gorilla – Confessions on the Struggle to Forgive

Now, let me make myself clear – I HATE ADULTERY.  I’ve seen cheating cause severe pain in couples, families and even destroy churches.  However, facebook is not the problem, people are the problem.  Creating rules for people to follow like, “THOU SHALL NOT FACEBOOK” is not going to fix problems that exist relationally in our churches.  What we have to do is teach what the Bible says about relationships and marriage, not create rules!

As ministers we have the opportunity to communicate a timeless message and life changing principles that can help people.  The teachings contained in the Bible help people develop healthy relationships, create personal accountability, build strong marriages, raise loving children, resolve difficult conflict, manage finances, honor parents, break addictions, and become genuinely better individuals.  No product or software is more powerful than the Word of God.

Facebook is a morally neutral tool, and we can use that tool for good or evil.  I would compare it to the Bible’s teachings on money.  Money is also a morally neutral tool.  1 Timothy 6:10 says, “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” It doesn’t say that money is evil… it’s the “love of money” that is evil. Facebook and money are simply morally neutral tools.

I think what we’re seeing in many churches is a need to explore something that is unknown.  We all get afraid of the unknown.  My kids are afraid to go into our basement alone simply because its dark and they can’t really see what might be at the bottom of the stairs.  That unknown space makes their imagination run wild at the thought of what might be down there in the dark. I think we can get that way when we as leaders have to take our congregations into unknown territory.

However, as church leaders, when we find ourselves in these strange and unknown places we have to educate ourselves. We can do so much more for our churches, and God’s kingdom, when we join together to help our congregations navigate new territories.  I actually think churches should embrace facebook and actively use it with their congregation for the greater community, not avoid it.  Here is a recent post I wrote on 10 Reasons Your Church Should Be On Facebook.  Those are just some quick thoughts, hope it helps!

UPDATE: Also if you want to know more about the questions I was asked you can read Lauren Green’s article here on Fox News.

However, there are times when I think any human being feels empty.  Not that God isn’t with you, not doubting your faith, but just creatively empty or spent.  Seth Godin recently wrote on the topic of inspiration and I found it pretty interesting.  Here is what he had to say:

One approach to innovation and brainstorming is to wait for the muse to appear, to hope that it alights on your shoulder, to be ready to write down whatever comes to you.

The other is to seek it out, will it to appear, train it to arrive on time and on command. The first method plays into our fears. After all, if you’re not inspired, it’s not your fault if you don’t ship, it’s not your fault if you don’t do anything remarkable–hey, I don’t have any good ideas, you can’t expect me to speak up if I don’t have any good ideas…

The second method challenges the fear and announces that you’ve abandoned the resistance and instead prepared to ship. Your first idea might not be good, or even your second or your tenth, but once you dedicate yourself to this cycle, yes, in fact, you will ship and make a difference.

Simple example: start a blog and post once a day on how your favorite company can improve its products or its service. Do it every day for a month, one new, actionable idea each and every day. Within a few weeks, you’ll notice the change in the way you find, process and ship ideas.

So the next time your creative juices are lacking don’t simply wait for inspiration… GO FIND IT!

”Not enough Hymns today…whoa too many Hymns…too long…too short…didn’t like all the new stuff…are we ever going to do anything new…why are the same people up there all the time…who are all the new people…too loud…could be louder…don’t like the drums…why didn’t you have a band today…more guitars please…why not just an organ and piano…don’t you dare bring that organ back…why do the new songs repeat so much…why do the old songs seem impersonal…that’s not a Hymn…that’s so 1990′s…I don’t get it…I don’t like it…why do you just listen to the “squeeky” wheels…why do you just listen to what the new people want…I think the band is distracting…I don’t like acapella…why even bring it up he won’t listen anyway…you work for us (ouch)” I could go on…it would seem we have dilemma folks because this is going on all over our churches…what’s a worship pastor to do short of asking for more medication?…why can’t worship pastors please everyone…why is this so hard?

OK worship leaders, you people have quite a challenge you face each week.  Our Arts Pastor at Hope Summit says this on the topic, “I have led worship now for almost 20 years and instead of avoiding this topic, or trying to please everyone or giving up, I have decided to embrace the challenge.”

Click here to read more of Ric’s perspective…

I like to think we can do something similar with church. Joy is something we see as a consistent theme throughout scripture. Even when we suffer, when life is throwing challenges our way, and when we find ourselves facing mountains we fear we cannot climb… God wants us to be filled with joy.

The video pokes fun at the stuff that makes parents crazy:

- keeping track of our kids
- sick kids
- injuries
- school grades
- spills and mistakes
- saying things we shouldn’t say
- finances
- etc…

People have watched this video over 5 million times now, maybe the we (the church) can learn something from Toyota and their marketing company on this one. Sometimes an effective way to approach people about a tough topic is to laugh a little.   Numerous times I’ve experienced dark moments when God has used a person in my life to make me smile, hopefully we can make our churches one of those places in people’s lives.  I’m not saying we make everything about our worship services a joke, but I am saying that I’m all for having fun with God whom I love and with people I care about.  We have every reason to be filled with joy:

Jude 1:23-25

24To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore!

Often they’ll be in a state of shock and I’ll explain myself.  It’s awesome because it is the perfect opportunity for a healthy confrontation.  I don’t love confrontation because it’s fun, I love the end result of confrontation when it is done in a Biblical and loving way.

Galatians 6:1-2 says, “¹Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. ²Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

Confrontation is not about getting your way, it is about taking advantage of an opportunity to teach someone how to manage conflict in a Christ-like way.  Biblical confrontation can be a part of discipleship.  Fortunately for us, Jesus lays out four steps in conflict resolution and some ground rules for a healthy confrontation.

Matthew 18:15-17

¹⁵“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.

Step 1: Confrontation in Private

In my personal experience over 90% of our conflict can end with step one. There are quite a few things I think we can learn just from this first step. Often I think we want people to come to us because we’re the ones that have been offended.  We’ll say, “they’ve hurt me so it’s their fault.” However, Jesus flips our expectations around and basically says that we’ve got it backwards.  He’s telling us that if we’ve been hurt it is our responsibility to go to the person that has hurt us and initiate the confrontation.

The other hard part about this first step is keeping it private.  I don’t know about you but when I’ve  been hurt by someone, I want to tell the world.  I’m tempted to gather an army against them.  I want to find allies and go on the attack!  This is NOT what Jesus expects from me.  He’s telling me that I need to keep my trap shut and keep it between the two of us.

¹⁶But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’

Step 2: Confrontation With A Witness

What is the definition of a witness?

Witness – One who can give a firsthand account of something seen, heard, or experience

This is not just someone that agrees with you! This is a person of integrity that has experienced or observed the behavior or has personally experienced the issue in question. Why do you think Jesus asks us to do that? I think it could be because, the person that has been hurt may be over reacting.  When I’ve been hurt I tend to get emotional and when I’m emotional I’m not always thinking clearly.  This is when having an unbiased third party can make a difference and help bring clarity to a situation.  Not only may the person that’s been hurt be over reacting, but it is also possible that the person who has caused the hurt may not understand the seriousness of their offense.  Again, sometimes hearing another party present the problem from a different perspective may help resolve a difficult situation.

¹⁷If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church;

Step 3: Confrontation with Leadership

The first two steps were fairly private.  Now things escalating to a new level and it is necessary to involve the leadership of the church.

Now this is a matter of my opinion.  Personally I don’t believe that when Jesus said, “tell it to the church” that he meant standing up on a Sunday morning and saying, “hey I’ve got a problem with that guy!” I believe he was indicating that you should go to a well respected leader in the church to aid you in conflict resolution.  Paul addresses this as a problem at the church in Corinth when in 1Corinthians 6 he is upset over lawsuits among believers.

and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

Step 4: End the Relationship

I think this is probably the hardest thing to do.  I would hate to have to bring a confrontation to this point but Jesus says,

-if that person won’t listen to you

-if they won’t listen to an objective small group of people

-if they won’t listen to church leadership

END THE RELATIONSHIP!

Don’t pretend that nothing happened. Don’t act like everything is ok, because it’s not ok.  This person has turned their back on you, objective witnesses, and even the leadership of the church.  Sometimes moving on has to do with self preservation and we need to take the initiative in protecting ourselves mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Plus, if you’ve handled the confrontation in a biblical manner you can rest your head on your pillow at night and know that you’ve done everything in your power to salvage the relationship.

While confrontation is never easy, confrontation is not a bad word…

As I connect with leaders and volunteers at Hope Summit, I love it when people catch the vision for evangelism.  It isn’t easy to change direction and do something differently when you’ve been doing it the same way for years.  I had the privilege of meeting with our Arts Team and began to cast vision for our new direction.  People are being stretched and challenged to grow in new ways as we implement a new philosophy of ministry in our church.

However challenging it is, I know its worth it when a teenage girl approaches me after the meeting and says, “I’m the only one in my family that comes to church, and if we actually do this, my mom just might come with me!”

I’ve had numerous conversations like that one, and I also love it when I get emails like this:

Sitting in the Worship team meeting tonight was exciting. It is so exciting when you begin a new family and can see the babes come and add to the family. Each new growth adds a different personality. Tonight I saw Hope Summit working on enlarging and adding to the family. It is exciting and scary as well exhilarating all at the same time.

When we are doing 1st Impressions, we are usually in the back and watch the people closer to the back of the church. Several of the young men are there and come in together and leave together. They want to be friends and have even opened opportunities to communicate with others. They only get so deep in conversations–although I am unsure who stymies the conversation. It will be exciting to see them more comfortable and accepting the message if delivered in a way that is familiar to them, and they won’t have to work so hard to translate it into their lives. Make it easier for people and they will be open to learn.

Thank you, for having courage.

As we continue to move forward I am confident there will be more challenges.  But when we see results in the hearts and lives of the people we serve, we can stay motivated to press on. For leaders, consistent vision casting is key in capturing the imaginations of those we lead.

Confession time. Sometimes when pastors preach, we feel like we are on an island and there is no one actually listening.  We get little or no response from the church, and we can almsot feel like what we’re doing is pointless.  It kind of feels like we are stranded on an island in the middle of a lake.  We can see people on the far shore all around us, but for some reason it doesn’t seem like they can hear what we’re saying.  I’ve seen pastors try to fix this problem a number of different ways:

• They scream louder – if I can preach screaming louder maybe they will hear me and actually listen! (This actually scares people away from the shore, especially the new people who need to hear the message the most.)
• They change the message – if I can tell them something they want to hear maybe they will listen? (When this happens it’s a catastrophy.  God already provided the message through the scriptures and He doesn’t want us to change it.  We can change our methods but NOT the message.)
• They try to be someone they’re not – if I preach like John Ortberg (or insert preacher’s name here) people will listen.  (God created me to be who I am and wired me with different passions and skills than John Ortberg.  Find a passage of scripture you’re passionate about, put in the hours of study needed and teach the congregation what God shows you through your hard work. It doesn’t mean you  can’t use John or other great preachers you admire for inspiration, but don’t try to be someone you’re not.)

I think we often find ourselves wanting to blame the listener when in reality we need to look in the mirror. There are a few key ingredients that I attempt to focus on when crafting a sermon:

1. Personal Connection: As a speaker I need to utilize my own experiences and be willing to be authentic with those that show up on Sunday.  God selected YOU to be a preacher for a reason, that means He believes you have something to offer that is unique.  Use your life and everyday experiences to help tell God’s story.

2. Biblical Truth: The Bible is the source of our teaching.  It needs to be our go-to book for truth, not the opinion page in the New York Times, or a talking head on Fox News or CNN.  Sometimes as preachers we can get so caught up in storytelling that we neglect staying focused on the scripture.

3. Relevance: I can’t tell you how many sermons that I’ve heard that sounded more like a list of scripture references from a topical Bible instead of a well-crafted teaching that provides the listener with something that they didn’t have prior to walking through the door.  As preachers we need to do our best to think of who might actually be sitting in the seat on Sunday morning.  Every time I sit down to write I think of two people.  First, I think of the believer, what can I present about this passage that will provide the seasoned Christian with something they didn’t know before?  Second, I think of the non-Christian, what can I say that will help them get one step closer to Jesus?

I don’t think preaching will ever become an easy task, and I’m not expecting it to be simple.  However, as I continue to pray and seek God in writing I hope to remain fresh, consistent, relevant, and most of all true to scripture.

After we firmed up details for our new house we were able to enjoy a weekend with our new church family.  Church on Sunday was fun and engaging and Ben Cachiaras from Mountain Christian Church was our guest speaker for the weekend.  For those that don’t know, Hope Summit is actually Ben’s home church and many members of his family still attend there today.  After church, a few families had a BBQ and enjoyed the nice weather with us that afternoon. Plus, the kids had a blast pretending that they were knights defending the castle while a dangerous dragon named “Copper” swooped in for the attack (which happened to be a loving and adorable Golden Retriever). The whole trip was a huge success and my kids were great on the road even though it was a long drive.  During the entire trip my two year old had one meltdown that only lasted two minutes!  My boys are champs in the car!

Last week we packed up our truck and a great crew from CCV was there to help.  There were a few points where I got a little nervous about the packing.  I couldn’t help but wonder, “Will we actually get it all in there?” But we did! It was a long afternoon of loading but the guys actually got done in time for a round of frisbee golf. Now all that is left is some house cleaning and tying up a few loose ends around town.  My father-in-law will be flying in to help us with the drive and he can’t wait to hang out with our boys four a couple of days as we settle into our new home.

To my new friends at Hope Summit, I look forward to serving with you, and Minnesota… HERE WE COME!