Inviting the Kingdom to come

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“Thy Kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10 KJV).

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches” (Matthew 13:31-32 NIV).

The message that Jesus preached more than any other was the message of the Kingdom. In Matthew’s gospel it was the “Kingdom of heaven.” In Mark and Luke it was the “Kingdom of God.” Both are references to the same. The first spoke more to a Jewish audience and the second to the rest of the world. Jesus brought us the message of the Kingdom and He gives us this message to proclaim.

Jesus spoke of a Kingdom that was near, here, and coming. Essentially, the Kingdom came with the coming of the King. So, where is the Kingdom? Is it near? Is it here? Or is it coming? Well, it depends. It depends on Jesus. Where is Jesus in your life? Because wherever Jesus is King the Kingdom has come. You can’t have a kingdom without a king. Is Jesus King in your life? If He is, then the Kingdom has come to you.

Jesus talked about the Kingdom being like a seed that grows into a tree. We have always used a tree as our church logo. Our current logo attempts to illustrate our vision statement: “Growing a Family of Christ Followers.” The logo is a family throwing up their hands in praise, but they are also representative of a tree producing its leaf in season.

This weekend we’re taking the church family downtown to run a booth at the Wilson Whirlygig Festival. What we’re doing is part of our calling to be messengers and ambassadors of King Jesus. Since Jesus is King in our hearts, wherever we go, the Kingdom goes.

This weekend we’re inviting the Kingdom to come to downtown Wilson.

College roomates and gospel partners

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Mark and Gary

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” Philippians 1:3-6 (NIV).

I got a call from my old college roomate, Mark Brantley, this week. He was back in the States after several years working in Russia and the Ukraine for our Father.

“Hey Gary!” He said, as I opened my cell phone to the unknown number on my caller ID.

“Mark!” I replied, immediately recognizing his voice. We were roomates our sophomore year at Radford University. Even though over 30 years had passed, I still knew that Southhampton County, Virginia accent of his.

“I want to come spend the night with you and Robin and catch up.” He continued.

“Come on down. We’d love to see you.” I replied. “As long as you don’t mind going to my small group that night.”

“Great. I’d love to go to your group.” He answered.

This wasn’t the first time I’d asked him to go somewhere with me. In fact, when he came to our small group on Wednesday night, I asked him to give his testimony. He told us how I’d asked him to go to a Campus Crusade meeting one night during our Sophomore year. He agreed on the condition that I’d go to a coffee house with him later (Mark wasn’t a believer yet and he and I were negotiating… you know… I’ll go to your boring Christian thing if you’ll go to my fun party thing.).

Mark went on to share with our group how he came to Christ that night. Mark told us how God had saved him. He told us many powerful things about his journey. And finally, how God had called him to reach out to the people of Ukraine and Russia.

As Mark talked, tears began to form in my eyes and my throat choked up. I was moved. I sat there in that living room listening to what God had done in my brother’s life and thanking God for the privilege of allowing us to cross paths as boys and now again as men.

I thank God for Mark. I praise God with joy because of the partnership He has given us through Christ.  You can’t imagine how sweet this partnership is… unless you’ve experienced it.

Orange aprons and the metrics of success

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I spent over a decade working in the corporate world before becoming a pastor, so I still like to stay informed. I recently read an article in Fortune magazine entitled, “Home Depot’s Total Rehab” that I found facinating. The article’s subtitle says, “First the customers revolted, then housing went into freefall. Time to slash and burn — unless you’re CEO Frank Blake, who thinks an army of orange aprons will save the day.”

“Orange aprons?” How can they save the day? Well, they can if they are worn by enthusiastic and motivated employees who make customers feel great about shopping at Home Depot. And that’s the point of this article. According to cofounder, Marcus Blank, “It was a religion at Home Depot that customers had to be happy.”

But after years of success, Home Depot had lost it’s “religion.” They hired a former GE executive as CEO to “bring scale and organization” to a company that had outgrown its entrepreneurial roots.

He introduced a new set of metrics for success. He led them to improve infrastructure and data systems. He centralized buying and merchandising. He slashed in-store payroll to lower expenses. Store managers were suddenly measured on a bewildering array of metrics, such as hourly labor rate. But none of these metrics related to customer service.

For several years the new strategy worked. Earnings per share more than doubled, driven by cost savings and centralized operations. But then, things began to turn downward. Customers, disatisfied with poor service, began to revolt (For evidence, type “I hate Home Depot” into Google). Employees, demoralized by the cutting of hours and the lack of emphasis on in-store leadership, began to leave. Home Depot was in trouble.

Now, a new CEO is trying to lead the company back to its original mission. He has cut labor in the central office in order to put dollars back into more “aprons” on the salesfloor. He often visits stores wearing an orange apron himself. He wants Home Depot to get its “customers come first” religion back. He wants to change the metrics for success back to customer service, professional advice, and in-store sales.

As I read this article I thought, “What are the metrics for success for our church?” It’s so easy to get caught up in building our own infrastructure. We look at attendance and giving. We count how many attend small groups. We try to save money by cutting costs and being frugal.

All these metrics are OK I suppose, but are they the true metrics for success?  I’m thinking that a better metric might be, “How many people are we leading to follow Christ in such a committed way that they are surrendering their lives to His service?”

In other words, how many people at WCC are wearing “orange aprons?”

Together at Catalyst

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Robin and I are in Atlanta this week with several WCC members at the Catalyst Conference. The theme this year is “Together.” We’ve certainly experienced a lot of togetherness these last two days. There was the 7 hour road trip, the hotel (with the funny smell and not enough sheets or towels), the rain, the traffic, the crowd… well, you get the idea. It took a lot of work to just be together at this conference.

We’ve heard some great speakers and experienced some great worship together. Tonight, we sat in rocking chairs at the local Cracker Barrel and “unpacked” our day together. I asked every member of our team to share their biggest “takeaway” of the day. Wow, what a rich conversation we had as each person, often with tear filled eyes, talked about how God had touched them.

Together. That’s the way God works through us. Life is just better together.

WCC’s first CD almost complete

Posted by & filed under Music, Religion, Weblogs.

We just finished our final touches on the studio recording for our first worship CD. My son, Stephen, has done a fantastic job as the producer on this project. He has spent 2 to 3 nights a week for the last 3 months at the Barton College studio. He actually wrote 12 of the 13 songs on the CD. I’m really proud of him and his Stedfast worship team. They have all worked very hard.

They even asked me to lay down one of my songs as a bonus track. So, last week I was in there recording a song I wrote some years ago called “Show Me Thy Ways.”

Now, we send the CD off to be mastered and reproduced. We’re planning to have them ready for purchase by December 1st.

I am praying that these songs will be a blessing to the Body of Christ.

Tattoos, tribes and true community

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“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Acts 2:42 (NIV)

What makes a true community?

People use the word community to describe all sorts of social groups. But what constitutes a “true” (real, authentic, fully realized) community? If we are born into the same race or family, does our membership in the same tribe equal true community? What if we wear the same colors, tattoo our bodies, endure the same initiation, does our gang become a true community? What makes a true community?

Psychologist and author, Scott Peck, says that most people have only experienced true community in accidental ways and that usually during crisis. He says that most groups that people think of as communities are really just “pseudo-communities.” He believes that true community requires going through a four stage process of deepening relationships and connection.

These four stages are:

  1. Pseudo-community: Where participants are “nice with each other”, playing-safe, and presenting what they feel is the most favourable sides of their personalities.
  2. Chaos: When people move beyond the inauthenticity of pseudo-community and feel safe enough to present their “shadow” selves.
  3. Emptiness: This stage moves beyond the attempts to fix, heal and convert of the chaos stage, when all people become capable of acknowledging their own woundedness and brokenness, common to us all as human beings. Out of this emptiness comes
  4. True community: the process of deep respect and true listening for the needs of the other people in this community. This stage Peck believes can only be described as “glory” and reflects a deep yearning in every human soul for compassionate understanding from one’s fellows.

Peck’s description of true community as the “deep yearning in every human soul” is what drives us to tattoo ourselves and identify with tribes. We all have a deep desire for true community.

I think God made us that way. He made us relational. He made us to be in relationship with Him and with others. That’s why Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God and to love others as ourselves. In other words, God designed us to be in true community with HIm and with HIs people.

As I look at any community that approaches the level of being “true,” they always seem to have certain traits in common. The first century church described in the book of Acts was certainly a “true community.” They had four traits in common. These four traits or “devotions” were the apostle’s teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer. Restated, they might be 1) a common belief, 2) a common identity, 3) a common practice, and 4) a common dependence.

This past Wednesday I gathered with my weekly WCC Community Group. After the loss of my wife’s father last week, our family was in need of some “true community.” We gathered in a member’s home to read the Scripture together, eat together, laugh, talk, and pray. They (and many others in our wonderful church) brought meals to our home. They filled our house with flowers and cards. They phoned and emailed their words of comfort.

True community. I think I’ve found it.

A great generation passes

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“This is the generation of them that seek Him…”  Psalm 24:6 (KJV)

My wife’s father, Garmon Whitfield Conner, passed away this past Wednesday. He died suddenly of a heart attack. Our family is in shock.

As I sit in a Roanoke hotel room writing this entry, I can’t help but think about how much I’ll not only miss him, but the generation he represents. Garmon (or Papaw as we called him after the grandkids came) was part of the “Builder” generation. They were the ones who gave birth to us “baby boomers.” They are the ones who built and planted much of what we now enjoy.

Yesterday, we spent the evening at Garmon’s house. We walked around the house and land he worked so hard to make into a home. His two acres, covered with fruit trees, grapevines, and gardens, all reflect the labor he spent and the dream he had for a home. September in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia means that a lot of those trees and vines are ripe with fruit. We enjoyed tasting peaches, pears, grapes and Virginia apples.

“Where did Papaw get all these different trees and plants?” My son Jonathan asked.  “Were they here when he bought the place?” He continued.

“No, I remember him planting some of these.” I answered, as I reflected on the 31 years I’d been coming there. “The truth is no one eats an apple from a tree they planted. We all enjoy the fruit of an earlier generation. Papaw planted these trees, but we get to eat their fruit.” I said.

The photo above is a favorite of mine. The look on his face is classic. Whoever took the photo probably asked him to look their way as they took the picture.

My guess is that he gave that look, as he said something like, “Can’t you see I’m busy cooking you supper?”

The look was just his way of joking. He was always ready to give. He was part of the great generation.

I plan to remember him by telling my kids and grandkids about his generation’s willingness to sacrifice. I also hope to lead them to seek after the Lord the way he did too.

I’ll miss Garmon Whitfield Conner. His initials are the same as mine, GWC. I’ve often kidded my wife that she was looking for a man who had the same initials as her father.

I hope I have more in common with him than that.

Multi-core processors and multi-tasking minds

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“Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”  “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:40-42 (NIV)

Man, this has been a distracting week! I’ve had so much to do that I’ve had difficulty focusing. But apparently, I’m not the only one struggling with all the distractions and complications of trying to multitask to keep up in this fast-paced world of ours.

Computer companies are facing a crisis as they try to achieve ever faster processing speeds. That’s how they get us to buy new units. They keep making them faster and more powerful. Up until recently they just kept making their processors faster until they began to reach the upper limit of a single processor’s speed. Now, developers have found a way to go faster by building multi-core processors. We hear them advertised as “dual core” and now “quad core” processors. They really speed things up when tasks can be divided into “parallel” paths. The crisis? Software. The software developers have been trained to think in a linear fashion. How can software be written that divides tasks into multiple parallel paths? Computer companies are frantically searching for a breakthrough in software that can utilize multi-core processors.

It’s not just computers that are hitting their multi-tasking limit, so are we. I read an article recently that described the huge gains in IQ scores that a test group had when they focused on a task. The group was first given a test to take while being interrupted by emails, phone calls, and other distractions. Then, they were given a similar test while sitting in a quiet room without distractions. Their scores increased dramatically when they were in the distraction free environment.

In the book of Luke a woman named Martha is described as suffering from the distractions of life. She was overwhelmed with worry and was extremely upset.

“Lord, don’t you care?” She asked.

The answer Jesus gave her is the one we need to hear today.

Jesus said, “You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.”

Jesus told Martha to focus. Focus on one thing. The thing? Him. Jesus told her to focus on Him.

Maybe I need to slow down to speed up.

Doing the little things

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“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ Matthew 25:23 (NIV)

This past Monday I helped facilitate a new peer learning group for ministry leaders in the Fayetteville area with the Innovative Church Community. We had a great time unpacking a teaching by Bill Hybels entitled, “Passing the Leadership Test.” Hybels gives five tests for leadership that he learned from the way Jesus called Peter. I really related to all five of the “tests,” but one really resonated with me. It was the one that Hybels called “The Bias for Action” test.

Hybels illustrates his point by telling a story about having a large number of people over to his house for a meal. As the evening winded down, Hybels headed to the kitchen sink and began washing dishes. Soon, he noticed someone standing at his side helping. He said of all the people there, this one man moved to help. Hybels goes on to say that this fellow now works on his leadership team and is a significant church leader. Hybels says he wants people on his team that are willing to do something, people with a bias for action.

When I first graduated from college and was offered a job at a major corporation, I asked my Uncle Clyde (who was the president of a bank at the time) if he had any advice for me.

He said, “Son, when the boss says sweep, you sweep with all you’ve got.”

I shook my head and smiled in response as I looked around his rich paneled office thinking what odd advice from such an influential man.

“Oh, OK.” I responded.

Even if I didn’t understand the significance of my uncle’s advice at the time, I still followed it. When I began my job as a management trainee, I was determined to do whatever the boss said, no matter how menial.

Guess what. The advice worked. I was promoted from Assistant Store Manager to Store Manager then to Area Manager and finally District Manager over 20 stores by the time I was 25 years old. I was the youngest DM in the company at the time.

My secret? When the boss said “sweep,” I swept. Funny how when I was faithful to do the little things, they kept promoting me and trusting me with more.

This Sunday we’ll be talking about a man named Stephen. The Bible says he was full of the Spirit and wisdom. If anyone was ever over-qualified for a job, it was Stephen. Yet, when the apostles asked him to wait tables, he took the job on willingly. He wasn’t unwilling to serve. There was no job beneath him.

And so, God promoted him and made him one of the most powerful preachers of his time. A whole missionary movement to the Greeks began with him.

Stephen was a hero because he was faithful to do the little things.

Time to relax or risk?

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“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”Esther 4:14 (NIV)

After turning 50 this summer I’ve been thinking that it’s time to start relaxing more. You know, let the young folks do the risky stuff.

Yet, last week (I don’t know what got into me) I jumped off of a cliff at Boone Lake, Tennessee. After climbing up the steep foot path I was so winded, I didn’t want to climb back down. But after peering down at the water from the top, I certainly didn’t want to jump either!

As I stood there, frozen for a moment, I thought to myself, “Gary, you’re too old to be up here. What were you thinking? You could break your neck!”

Meanwhile, from the boat below, another commentary was being offered by my cousin, David. He is six years my elder. He has been “inspiring” me to do things since we were kids.

“Hey, you’re not wimping out are you?” He offered, as he saw me pausing on the precipice.

Well, as a matter of fact, I was. I mean, I’m too old to be pulling stunts like this anymore. I’ve already jumped from enough cliffs. Time for someone else to do the jumping. Right?

Wrong. I jumped. And it was ugly. I looked like a wounded bird flapping its wings as I plunged into the water nearly 40 feet below. But coming up from the chilly depths, I was glad. Glad that I had jumped again (and glad that I didn’t die).

Earlier this week I was talking to a pastor friend of mine named Mike. He asked what my vision was for our church this coming year. He said that he wasn’t sure that his vision was big enough for his church. He said that he wanted to remain on the “cutting edge,” willing to risk everything for God. Mike wants to keep believing God for things that are beyond human effort.

With a smile, Mike said, “I don’t want to get too comfortable. I want to keep taking risks for God.”

This Sunday we’ll be looking at another faith “hero.” Her name is Esther. She came from a very risky background. She was a Jewish orphan raised by her cousin. But she rose to prominence and wealth. In spite of her position of comfort, she risked everything to help rescue her people. She may have thought that she had already risked enough for God. But she didn’t choose to rest. She chose to risk.

Do you ever feel that you’re too old or that you’ve already risked enough?  Are you afraid that God is calling you to jump?

So, jump. Faith believes that God will catch you.