sat in on an afternoon session with my bishop, bishop dick wills. here are some of my disassociated notes.
- when the earth was cooling and i began to pastor, everything that i was taught to do no longer equipped me.
- in south Africa back in '91 they were so backwards that they still practiced wesleyan class meetings. we asked them to come and teach us in florida, and it changed our church.
- if you are not doing god's will then the suffering is awful, because it's empty
- the life of the church can be similar to a bell shaped curve. because they all wander away from God.
- i think pastors are payed primarily to pay attention and notice, the top point on the decline.
- (prayer) dear god please send us people no one else wants.
- "dick, you've made a huge mistake. never allow the sheep to be dependent upon the shepherd for the feeding." -wayne cordero
- "you have to teach the sheep to be self-feeding."
- S: scripture: god has something that you need. a promise or a correction for that day. write that scripture down
- O: observation - what is the lesson that you learned
- A: application - how does this apply to my life
- P: prayer - prayer to God
- Y: yield - what must i yield to make this happen
- it takes a lot of work to change the dna of a congregation. it takes a lot of redundant work. we gave out bookmarks, with the liturgical color, i preached the message of journaling with each of those.
- 2 things happened once we implemented that. we never lost another family to another church, because they were self-feeding. things disappeared on sunday morning like "excuse me, you are sitting in my spot." "i didn't get anything out of the message." but we started hearing "i've come to praise god and worship god." "can i experience god here?"
- the 80percent who took on the journaling began to take on transformation of the heart.
- "you cannot share what you do not have"
- "people will not do what you teach, they will do what you do."
- "starbucks is like a non-alcoholic bar. everyone is welcome no matter how or who they are. wish churches were more like that."
- "this not a church membership gimmick, it's about the kingdom. not franchises or territories."
- if you don't have something to testify about within 6 months of your life god is not working with you. i'm sorry.
- in the state of tennessee 53% of the population are not in church on sunday.
- if everyone in your neighborhood goes to church then you don't need to bring anyone in. but you need to start sending missionaries out to the neighborhoods that they don't go to church. the churches task is not for ourselves but to give our lives away.
- don't be so out of touch with jesus that you don't give the opportunity.
- (yes booth) a booth that helps to connect people to others who have said yes to Jesus.
in other unrelated news, or related, i have been asked to get up and going the content of the life journal content. i couldn't say anything but "sure" after this.
