Well, today, as he always does, Perry hit a home run.  You gotta stop what ever you’re doing right now and read what he posted today.

Read.

Repent.

Repeat.

• Attendance was back up today, and we had several guests from the neighborhood with us
• Today was an awesome service. I was so proud of our church.
• It was so awesome to look out and watch our folks during the greeting time.  Brenda had to start playing the organ to get folks to sit down!
• We celebrated the 48th anniversary of Robin Class, our ministry to mentally handicapped and developmentally challenged people
• They sang “Happiness is to Know the Savior” today and it was so cool! Our Robins express their worship so unhindered by things that hang the rest of us up.
• The lady who usually is in the nursery has been out with a knee replacement. We hadn’t thought about a back-up, but today during the service we had a guest with a small child. One of our other ladies quietly slipped out of her seat, came up along-side the guest and offered to take her child to the nursery. It was so wonderful. Nobody had to ask….she just saw a need and met it.
• The message today was based on Acts 17:6.  I talked about How to Change Your World.
• Speaking of changing our world, over 200 World Changers volunteers will be with us beginning on Saturday, July 5, to work on about  a dozen homes in the neighborhood right around our church.
• The month of July is going to be an extremely busy–and significant–month in Cradock’s life.
• This afternoon we had the second of our Dreaming Again session.
• I presented the map of our current organizational structure.
• We have a ratio of 3 committees for every one adult Sunday School class. This is not good.
• We had two groups who got together in recent days to think strategically about spiritual growth and service. They reported tonite. Incredible!
• One of them said, “it’s easy to come up with ideas of things we think the community needs because they are things we like to do…”
• “Most of us drive to church in our air conditioned comfort, and not many people who see us in the neighborhood know we are part of the church because they never see us outside the building.”
• “We must build street credibility if we are going to serve our neighborhood.”
• “We’ve got to get outside the building and build strategic partnerships in the community to serve the community.”
• I was blown away. The coin is dropping. People are getting it!
  
• People are beginning to think strategically and are talking about the kinds of strategic changes that have to occur for our church to be in existence 5 years from now.
• We have decided to delay a strategic conversation about Worship until after this coming Sunday.
• Next Sunday, three of the churches in our community (Baptist, Methodist & Presbyterian) are combining their morning worship services.
• Our special music is going to be provided by one of the visiting groups with the World Changers project. That should stretch most of our folks pretty seriously.
• We’re also having a huge dinner on the grounds following the service.
• We were debating the merits of 9″ plates versus 11″ plates, and divided plates versus un-divided plates. I don’t want my potato salad getting up against my waldorf salad. I think the 9″ undivided plates won, tho…..
• I think that from a strategic perspective, having an opportunity for our folks to experience a different style of worship up close and personal will do more to help their understandings of what it means to worship in the heart language of our neighborhood than any other single thing we could do.
• After that we can get together to talk about what our strategy needs to be in terms of worship.
• I’ve got a week filled with meetings in prep for the missions project next week.
• Hope to be able to blog through that event..we’ll see!
• I’m going to go warm up a burger!  Peace!

Neil Cole, in his book, Cultivating a Life for God: Multiplying Disciples Through Life Transformation Groups quotes Tom Clegg, co-author of Releasing Your Church’s Potential, who was speaking at a church growth seminar.  Clegg asked,

If this is a Christian nation, why is it that the largest church in the world is in Seoul, Korea, while the largest Buddhist temple is in Boulder, CO?  If this is a Christian nation why is the second largest church in the world in Nigeria, while the largest Muslim training center is in New York? (Cole, p. 11)

Interesting observation.

With all the rhetoric we will be hearing this summer about the upcoming presidential election, we really need to stop and ask ourselves, “How Christian are we, really?”

How much impact are we having on our communities?  

• Attendance this morning was back up to what it usually is.
• We had several guests this morning, including some former staff who were back visiting with us.
• My message this morning was from Romans 6, “Dying to Live.”
• I told the story of the 86-year-old Canadian couple who won the lottery. When asked what she was going to buy with the winnings, the wife remarked, “I think I’ll buy some new nylons.”
• One of our youth asked one of our ladies, “What are nylons?” Priceless!
• We have to die to the belief that all that the death of Christ secured for us is a bunch of rules to obey if we want to truly live the life that Christ calls us to live!
• We have to die to the belief that all we have to do is believe (get our get-out-of-hell-free card punched) and then we can live like we want.
• We can’t live concerned only about our nylons while we ignore the spiritual fortune that is ours!
• Catherine nailed it in her children’s sermon: If we say we are a vegetarian, yet we continue to each beef, chicken and pork, are we really a vegetarian?
• Found out one of our members is moving their membership to another church in the area. Always sorry to see anyone go, but if they feel they can better get their needs met there, then God bless ‘em.
• Ran home after the service for a quick lunch, change clothes, pick up Josh from a Scout trip, then return to the church for the Community Prayer Walk.
• Got a big meeting tomorrow morning for the World Changers Project coming up over here July 5-12.
• Norfolk’s World Changers project is this week. Pray for Terrace Crawford as he is the point person for the project.
• We had 20 people show up today for our first-ever community prayer walk in preparation for World Changers in Portsmouth.
• Those 20 represented 6 different churches, which is 20% of the churches in our Association. Four of the six were represented by their senior pastor, one church’s associate pastor was there in addition to the senior pastor, and one church was represented by one of their staff ministers, and the sixth was represented by their Deaconess and a large contingent of members.  This is AWESOME!
• Pray that this project will be the needed jump start, not only in the revitalization of the neighborhood, but in the spiritual restoration of the community.
• The next two weeks are going to be busy. I hope to be able to blog along the way.
• Peace and all good!

Quickly I discovered that what Foster had given us in terms of the “how-to’s” of classical spiritual disciplines, Willard had given us in the philosophical and theological underpinnings for them.  (It’s a stunning testimony: most religious books that release in hardback editions stay in print 6 months. If they go into paperback, they stay in print an average of 18 more months. The Spirit of the Disciplines is still in print. In hardback!)

My copy of The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives is now well-worn. The covers are hanging by a thread, and the dust-jacket is almost more tape than paper now. But what makes my copy all the more precious is the author’s signature which I was able to get when Dr. Willard spoke on campus a few years later.

Today I received an email announcing the release of Dr. Willard’s forthcoming book, Knowing Christ: A Guide for Today’s Disciples

Willard is one of those rare authors whose work I will recommend without reservation and without having read in advance. His reasoning is firmly rooted in a Christ-centered, biblically-informed world view. He will challenge you and stretch your understanding of what it means to know and follow Christ.