Five Questions for Me
Mar 21, 2007 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
.:mood:. Thinking
.:itunes:. None because I am working in a coffee shop and I left my headphones in the office
Michael Spencer (internetmonk.com) asked me to answer 5 questions about a recent post by Mark Driscoll. Apparently, this post has been pretty popular lately but I have not done much reading the last week or so because I have been a tad swamped. After getting Michael’s questions, I felt like I really wanted to respond and his site was a great venue to do so. Here are his questions and my responses starting with Michael’s introduction:
One of the most talked about posts in the blogosphere this week is Mark Driscoll’s report on his exhaustion, health problems and current explosive growth church situation. Reformed Catholicism and others wrote excellent responses. When I read Driscoll’s post, I decided I wanted to get the reaction of one of the pastors of one of the healthiest growing evangelical churches I know about, Riverview Church in East Lansing, Michigan.
Noel serves as one of five pastors at Riverview, a growing church with a uniquely Biblical and common-sense approach to leadership and preaching. Check them out.
1) What’s your personal reaction to Driscoll’s post?
Initially, my reaction is sadness.
I have tons of respect for Mark and what he is doing for Jesus. He’s a polemic guy for sure, but his passionate approach to ministry is inspirational to a lot of young guys who are aspiring to do big things for the Gospel.
The two things that have bothered me for awhile, though, are the pace he seems to keep and the cult of personality that is being built around him. I don’t thing the latter is his fault, it’s just the nature of things. The former is most certainly because of his driven personality. The combination is what makes me nervous. Very few guys can sustain this for long.
Mark once said in a teaching that a pastor doesn’t have time for hobbies. I remember filing that away in the back of my head, wondering if his health or his wife would one day shut him down. I am so thankful that it seems like his body is beginning to say “no, dude, it’s time to slow down.” I hope he will be able to take the advice of his naturopath friend. It would be sad to have him burn out after one decade–he has many many decades of ministry ahead of him.
My second reaction to Mark’s post is encouragement.
It seems like he is diagnosing this well in his life before it has the chance to take him completely out. He’s getting counsel from people he respects and he is doing one of the healthiest thing he can do: he is being public about what he is going through. Just typing the words to his blog is therapuetic, I suspect. It also takes away from the superhuman facade and allows people to remember he is just a normal schmuck like the rest of us.
2) He calls you and asks what he should do. What do you say?
After, “why the heck are you calling me?” I would give him one piece of advice: Share the Pulpit.
Mark is a self-proclaimed Pulpit Hog. I can identify with him, because I am the same way.
If I was to be super honest, I would say that in my flesh I would love to preach every week. It is one of my favorite parts of the job. I feel like it is one of my strongest gifts. (Of course, I’ve never had to sit through my own teachings, so you’d have to ask people in my church about this.) But it would be flat out unhealthy for both my church and me if I preached every week.
This year, I will preach 19 weekends, one of my co-pastors Steve will preach 19 and the other guys will fill in the remaining 14. In the future, I may teach a bit more, but I don’t ever think it would be a wise idea for me to teach more than 50% of the year.
This shared teaching schedule gives me downtime between series’ to focus my energies on other aspects of the church. It also give me time to chill, time to be with my family, time to ride my bike. It is in these downtimes that I recharge enough to connect with God and seek His help in where to go the next time I teach. Each and every time I start a series, I am chomping at the bit to go after it again.
The other thing this does is it prevents the church from being built on my personality. Churches tend to take on a little bit of the personality of their most public pastor. That means both his strengths and weaknesses. It also inadvertently places that guy in an indispensable category.
I can say with all confidence that I if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, our church will go on and it will go on strong.
3) How is your church working to keep this from happening at Riverview?
See the last answer. A plural structure for the pastors along with a shared teaching ministry is our primary protection.
Over the course of the last five years, two of our five pastors have undergone significant crisis in their lives. During each of these times, we didn’t miss a beat because when one guy needed time to handle a tough situation, the other guys picked up the slack. In fact, I don’t think the majority of our church is even aware of these situations. There was increased burden for the other pastors for a season, so I’m not saying it was easy. These times were tough but manageable because of our structure.
4) What is your response to multi-site video church planting?
I’ll admit, my first reaction is nervousness. The reason is on the same thread as most of my answers here: the cult of personality. I’m afraid that without shared teaching, many of these churches will go down in flames if the main teacher eats a bad avocado and dies.
Now with that said, the idea is growing on me especially as an aid to church planting. The reason is that every young church planter thinks he can preach, and unless he has been involved in a church with a shared teaching platform (ahem), he will not have very much experience honing his craft. Those first few years of planting a church are the worst possible time to work on it! Planting a church is hard work and they should be spending the majority of their time with the difficult tasks of building relationships in the community, sharing the Gospel, and basically helping their infant church learn how to walk. If the main guy spends 25 hours every week working on a teaching, he is probably not using his time the best way.
A video venue, if used in the first few years of a church plant, can be a great tool. I would like to see more new church plants consider a modified model where they use video venue about half the time for the first few years to help them get off the ground. I think it is essential to ween the church off the video eventually, though, once they are able to do so.
5) What is your view of the interaction of church growth and church planting?
I used to think they were diametrically opposed, but I don’t anymore. It’s just harder for a growing church to devote money and attention to church plants. The internal pressures get greater and greater and it’s easy to focus on your own church to the exclusion of sending out more churches.
This can be overcome, though, as long as church planting is always held out front. That’s something Mark Driscoll has done very well and I have personally learned a lot from him.
Hope I didn’t Misspeak
Mar 20, 2007 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
.:mood:. Sinful
.:itunes:. Come On! Feel The Illinoise! by Sufjan Stevens
I was perusing Abigail’s Blog and I came across this post about this weekend’s message:
While I love Noel, and usually agree with 90% of what he has to say. I really had trouble listening to a lot of what he said after a certain point in the sermon for the way it came across. There was a statement that was made when talking about sin and judging others (Christians) for what they do. I forgot the quote exactly how he said it, but basically that Christians don’t sin.
I posted a comment on her blog, but I also want to post it here in case anyone had the same reaction.
I hope I never said “Christians don’t sin.” If I said that, it was a big boo-boo because it says in 1 John 1:8,
“If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.”
What I meant to say (and I thought I said) was that Christians “have the ability not to sin.” There is a huge difference. It’s like what Paul says in Romans 8:1-2
“So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.”
I was not saying “Yay, Christians are great and never sin!” I was saying we have been set free from bondage and we can make the decision not to sin.
Hopefully this makes sense.
Set Pics
Mar 18, 2007 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
Nate and Kristie outdid themselves this weekend with a crazy cartoon themed cityscape for the new series. I like the fact that they are working together more tightly to come up with cohesive themes.
Thanks to Nate for the pic.
March Miracle Madness: Riverview vs. Trinity
Mar 18, 2007 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
Riverview faced off against Trinity Church tonight in a basketball game to raise money for Shared Pregnancy. Luckily, in this news clip they didn’t talk about how badly we got spanked.
Daily Jeezit Podcast: Can We All Just Get Along?
Mar 16, 2007 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
.:mood:. Amicable
.:itunes:. Stamping Ground by Moondog With Orchestra
In this episode, I chat with Michael Spencer, The Internet Monk about getting along with other Christians. The recording isn’t the best, because I am still working on the settings. Please forgive the choppiness.
This piece in response to a post Michael did on his site regarding this video:
Here’s the video of my podcast. As always, you can download or play the audio, as well. The links for that are at the bottom of the post.
Can We All Just Get Along? [13:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Kapow!
Mar 16, 2007 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
.:mood:. Excited
.:itunes:. Bad Day by Fuel
While preparing my last series at Riverview, I realized I had way to much to fit into the last teaching. Basically, I was teaching on how to handle conflict within the church. If you were there, you may remember that I taught on the 4 main areas of conflict within the church:
1. Stupid Stuff
2. Open Handed Stuff
3. Closed Handed Stuff
4. Sin Stuff
Because of time, I only fit the first 3 into the service. That’s why I’m so excited about the series that I am launching this weekend. We are going to spend 3 weeks going through the last area: Sin Stuff.
This week, we tackle “How to deal with someone who has sinned against you.” If you want to invite someone to the service, you can use our handy Riverview evite. Oh, and if you missed the last teaching, it may help to have it for context.
You can download the audio here
Or you can watch it here:
RED CROSS mobile billboard
Mar 16, 2007 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
.:mood:. Wow
.:itunes:. Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love by Van Halen
This is a very cool ad campaign (via thecoolhunter) from Red Cross. Click on the images for a larger version.
Riverview Should Just Buy This
Mar 15, 2007 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
.:mood:. Wow
.:itunes:. Pollution by The Hippos
My friend Michael sent me this article from Midwest Conservative Journal about a church in Michigan for sale. Maybe you have seen it. It is near Portage and I see it every time I drive to Chicago.
Chuck Motivates
Mar 14, 2007 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
.:mood:. Motivated
.:itunes:. River by Natalie Merchant
Because I haven’t talked about Chuck Norris in a long long time, allow me to present (via…..lost in maidyland).
