Coach’s Corner

I entered the blog world back in January this year.  As a result of that, i have been exposed to some really phenomenal church leaders who blog as well.  I read their thoughts and I try to learn from them and their experiences.  It was because of these blog connections that I became aware of ONE PRAYER.  This initiative was begun by Craig Groeschel at LifeChurch.tv.  His dream was to bring as many churches as would be willing together to focus more on our common faith than the differences in interpretation between us.  This is based on this passage from Ephesians 4:1-6:

1As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

There are thousands of churches that agree on the fundamentals of the faith, that salvation is found alone in Jesus Christ, that it is by grace through faith that we become children of God.  Yet those same churches will have  disagreements over non-fundamental issues.  Those disagreements have become the focus of denominations, churches, and believers, and have seperated us and kept us from seeing the larger kingdom issues of winning the lost to Jesus Christ. During ONE PRAYER, over 1600 churches representing nearly 1,000,000 people (check out the list here) decided to lay aside differences and lift up our common and shared faith and realize that the body of Christ is bigger than our local congregation.  Without a doubt, God works through the local church.  As Bill Hybels loves to say, “The local church is the hope of the world”.  I echo that sentiment.  But the lost reality for many of us is that there are thousands of local churches.  One local church cannot possibly lead and minister to every believer or reach every lost soul.  So what if we understood that if we join our part of the body with another part of the body, we can at times accomplish even more than we can on our own?  That was the dream of ONE PRAYER.

During ONE PRAYER we began with our own challenge of “Lord, Make Us Resilient”.  All of us have been beaten by the storms of life.  No one is immune to it.  But far too often, the challenges that rage against us turn us against God or make us give up.  But God is a God of Second Chances.  Things that are resilient not only “bounce back”, they return to their original condition.  That’s what God wants to do with each of us.  He doesn’t want to give us some broken-down, held together with duct tape life.  He wants to make us fully alive.  He wants to redeem us completely.  And if we allow him to make us resilient, we will become an incredible witness to the world around us as they see how God can work in broken and discouraged people and make us whole and healthy. We continued with messages from:

• Steven Furtick - Make us Audacious.  I actually was unfamiliar with Furtick, but after seeing his video message, I knew it would find a home in the hearts of our people.  He did an awesome job of reminding us through the story of Jonathan and his armor bearer that God’s “perhaps” is bigger than our maybe’s.
• Craig Groeschel - Make us One.  Craig’s message was a powerful reminder to us that as we move forward, it must be in unity… not uniformity… but unity.  Which means we may not agree on everything, but we are called to love each other and to serve one another.  That’s true within individual churches as well as the church at large.  Our people applauded at the conclusion of the message.
• Perry Noble - Make us Dangerous.  We wrapped up with Perry’s challenge to be dangerous in following God.  We need to get out of the frustration line and in to the anticipation line.  We need to live on the edge of what we believe God will do.  When we truly BELIEVE Jesus, we’ll do things and go places that don’t make sense, but we’ll be the better for it.

The month of June became a really incredible time of challenge and transition for our church.  Here’s what happened in June”

• We agreed as a church to change our name to Second Chance Church (More here)
• We committed to a “re-grand opening’ at the end of September under our new banner.
• We initiated a mission outreach to collect shoes for orphans and had wonderful results (More here and here)
• Lesley and I participated in a church planters assessment in Wisconsin that opened the door for some possible partnerships.
• Our church body was challenged and inspired in positive ways.

My deep appreciation to all of the churches and pastors that followed God’s leading to be a catalyst and a resource for ONE PRAYER.   Our church, for one, benefitted greatly.  And I, as it’s leader, was ministered too.  Now it’s time to lock and load!  Let’s go ‘git ‘r done!”

I entered the blog world back in January this year.  As a result of that, i have been exposed to some really phenomenal church leaders who blog as well.  I read their thoughts and I try to learn from them and their experiences.  It was because of these blog connections that I became aware of [...]