Tall meets small

FOX News posts this picture today of the World's tallest man in a meet and greet photo opt. You can read the story here. In all the bad news in the world it is good to see that we can put away our differences and be friends.

Watermelooza

This weekend is going to be a blast! On Saturday we will meet at the school at 9, to go over the Westridge community and pass out fliers for our kidZone and free watermelon event. Then on Sunday evening we will set up at the common area from 5-7 and give away 100 watermelons for free! I love giving stuff away for free and letting people know that God loves them. God provided a great produce guy who is giving us the large seedless melons at cost. He is a believer and wants to help get the word out about our awesome Savior and most of all the free gift of salvation. Let me ask you to do a couple of things. 1. Pray! Pray for good weather, pray for people to come out, pray for people to stick around and find out more about Christ and Cornerstone. 2. Come! we need people to come and help pass out door hangers on Saturday, and we need people to come out Sunday night and help. There is nothing I would like better right now than one of these cold watermelons, I know that if someone offered me one for free I would really appreciate it. I know that a cup of cold water in His name does not go unnoticed. I am so looking forward to showing the love of Christ by giving away a melon of cold water!

A little about blogging

Below is the text of an email I sent out trying to explain how we use blogging. Hopefully it will give you some ideas on how to blog or read blogs.

Blogs are a shortened name of "web-log" Basically it began as a bulletin board for people working on projects to leave notes for each other as to progress etc. Eventually, people started using it as a way of keeping a personal journal in computerized manner. From there people started making portions of their journal available for others to read, and things like myspace.com came about. Blogs are used a lot by media to run stories that might not make the paper, or by political pundits who are trying to sway voters. Some churches use them as a way to communicate with people as a type of church newsletter. My blog is mostly for my church people. We use it to stay in communication about the news and events of CBC and it is a great way to get a behind the scenes look at the vision of the church. IF you want to see pictures, get to know the pastor, find out what is going on, the blog is the place to go. On a more practical sense, bulk email quickly turns into spam, where the blog is read on the reader's terms. There is not a sense of I have email from the church I have to read. Also, the last few months I have used a blog to write a daily devotional for our church that leads into the study we will be doing in our small groups on Sunday and what I will preach about in worship. As a reader, I read several dozen blogs, mostly by pastors and church planters. It is a way for me to see what others are doing and to find insight and inspiration. It is a modern day newspaper where I select the collunists. Google has a reader that will bring all new articles to one page and allow you to delete them or keep them in folders. That is blogging 101. For reference, my blog is found at blog.joeljohns.org my devotional blog is www.inthedaily.blogspot.com.

Your house is on fire... NOT!

Not much time for blogging today, but thought you might enjoy this video of the police kicking in the door on the wrong house. LINK

Too Late for Gardening

I told my kids that we would have to wait until after camp and vacation to plant a garden. They have been wanting to do something for years and now I will do my fatherly duties of destroying perfectly good lawn and replace it with dying plants. We went yesterday to Lowes who wisely had discontinued selling any garden variety vegetables. So off to Wal-Mart, where pickins were slim but stocked. We chose three fledgling tomato plants an egg plant ( I said pickins were slim) and a bell pepper. The great thing about the experience was Jimmy. Jimmy works in the garden section and he LOVES plants. I was so excited to go to a place where the guy was not "working," he was enjoying telling people about plants. I truly wish that everyone loved their job as much as Jimmy. I identified with Jimmy, I love Cornerstone and the fact that I am actually paid full time for doing ministry. Today I will preach an funeral and have a deacons meeting. Believe it or not, these are two things I love to do. I know it is weird, but that is what it is like when God has called you to a ministry. Things that other people hate to do, you love doing. Today let me challenge you to find something you love to do, and leverage it for the Kingdom of God. That, my friend is ministry. And then go through the Cagan's Wal-Mart garden department and thank Jimmy for loving his job!

Dealing with Departures

Today I will be preaching to a group of preachers. It is a bit intimidating for a young pastor to address such a audience, but God's Word will do all the teaching, all I have to do is expose it. As I prayed about what these men need to hear and God laid a burden on my heart about people leaving the churches they pastor. It is an all too common occurrence and painful for anyone trying to build a ministry. After reading scripture on the matter here is what I learned.

1. Many disciples left Jesus - Jn 6

- If many left Christ many will leave you. And when that happens it is natural to withdraw and question even your most loyal followers, but ministry marches on and some faithful will stay true to the vision and some devils will stick around too. Many quit Christ, many will quit you.

2. Godly ministers disagree - Acts 13 & 15

- John Mark wimps out on Paul's first missionary journey and it drives Paul and Barnabas to separate. In the end, ministry goes on and is actually multiplied. When this happens we must guard ourselves from bitterness, and you never know when that John Mark might come in handy. 2 Tim. 4.

3. Fellow laborers will fall - 2 Tim. 4

I think every pastor can identify with Paul when he said "At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me" Ministry can be lonely at times, but we still have His promise to never leave us or forsake us. When Demas fell back into the world's grip Paul had to continue on. The plain truth is that others in ministry will fall away. Their failure cannot determine our faithfulness.

So, what do we do about it?

1. Refuse to fall in love with another man's bride.

- In truth the church is not ours. She belongs to Christ. Too many of us as pastors fall in love with the ministry to the point that we develop an unhealthy relationship.

2. Refuse to be more concerned with who you are losing than who you are winning.

- The temptation of most churches is to chase down absentees and runaways at the expense of those who have never been. Unfortunately when this happens we are usually wasting out time on people who have already decided that our church is not the church for them. We must let them go and take the gospel to the undecided.

3. Refuse to judge the success of ministry based on the number of people in the pew or pennies in the plate.

- When we look at these gauges as soon as the service is over, we are keeping score in the wrong game. A worship service is about worship of God, not worship of numbers. Number are important but they are not primary, and probably not even secondary.

4. Refuse to believe you have the ability to build it or break it.

- Pastor, you did not build the church. Jesus said He did. And if the gates of hell cannot destroy it then neither can you. Stop taking credit for everything both positive and negative.

5. Refuse to change your mission based on who gets on or off the bus.

-Pastoring a church is like driving a bus. Bus drivers do not base their driving on keeping people on the bus. They just drive their route. Along the way people will get on and people will get off, but we must keep driving because that is what we are commissioned to do.

I know that many of those who read the blog are from Cornerstone, and hopefully this will be helpful for you to know. To you church planters and pastors hang in there, and stay focused on your mission!

Pray for Pastor Bruce

We got a call this morning that Bruce Wanless, our pastor to senior adults broke his leg on a Harley. He had surgery this morning and he is recovering well. Be sure to lift him up in prayer and if you would like to send note you can send it tomailto:rv5wheel@aol.com