Eric Offstage

Atheists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Drunks, Gays & Biker Bars

I love our church.  Let me share with you some of the highlights of just the past weekend of ministry.  (I love my job.)

1.  I had an atheist email me to say how much she loves our church.  She has not become a Christian yet but has been attending for like 6 months now and is kicking the tires of faith.  She just wanted to say thank you for not talking down to her and for making her feel accepted.   

2.  I met a guy who used to be a practicing Jehovah's Witness.  He had been a teacher/leader guy in that cult and since coming to the Crossing has given Jesus the leadership of his life.  (How cool is that.)

3.  I know of several people that drank all night and were totally hungover but they came to give Jesus a shot Sunday morning, and He totally talked to them.   

4.  I know of several men and women who attend the Crossing each week that are working through tough issues like homosexuality and sexual addiction.  I love that that they are welcomed and treated with respect and love each and every week.         

5.  I got an awesome email from a woman who just wanted to tell our whole staff thank you for all the hard work and the bluntness of our services.  She walked away from God a long time ago but because of the Crossing and our ability to make her laugh and give her hard truth, she has given Jesus the leadership of her life again.

6.  I got to go to a biker bar in Becker and look at it, as a potential Crossing campus in 2010.  It was awesome!!   How amazing would it be to put The Crossing in a biker bar!  I think this one is a no-brainer.  (Hey, Becker community - Jesus is coming to a Biker Bar near you!! )    

That was just my last few days ministry highlights.  Jesus is so awesome.  I can't believe I get to pastor a church full of atheists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Drunks, Gays and regular people who think so outside the box that we could put a church in a biker bar. 

What an amazing God I serve. 

The Best Quotes and Learning from the Exponential Church Conference

As Kelly mentioned in the last post, Chris (our new Zimmerman campus pastor), Dave (our media arts pastor), Eric (the pastor of the new church we just planted in Uptown called the Exchange) and I were in Florida at the Exponential Church Conference this week, learning from some of the best church minds in the world. 

This conference is mainly for church planters.  (There were thousands of new churches represented at this gathering.) and for those of you that are interested I wanted to share with you some of my favorite quotes, pieces of information and things that God spoke to me about during this 4 day gathering. 

Erwin McManus:

The most self centered narcissistic statement of faith ever is:  "Jesus died so that I could go to heaven and I could have a good life."

NO!  JESUS died a heroic self-sacrificial death so that we would live heroic self-sacrificial lives for the good of all humanity.

Alan Hirsch:

The church does not have a mission; the mission has a church. 

• God is a missionary God, and He is on a mission to heroically save the world. 
• It is our job to join Him on this mission and see what God is already doing in people's lives.  He is already on the move!  God has a mission and that mission has a church.  Will you join him?  

• The Church has mostly become a riskless, safe compound, apart from danger. 
• The church needs to be a place where we experience great risk and trauma together in order to accomplish great things. 

• Therefore the primary task of church leaders is to disturb people's equilibrium.  Force them to face out and go to war together to change the world.   

Craig Groeshel:

There are 3 lines of commitment to Christ:

• Line # 1:  I believe enough for my own benefit

• Line # 2:  I believe enough to contribute comfortably

• Line # 3:  I believe enough to give my life to it.

Most American church people live at line one and line two, but is that real faith? 

Everywhere in Scripture Jesus talks about faith He talks about 3^rd line faith and He has no patience for first or second line faith.

Our goal as a church is to push people to cross the third line and give their entire life to Christ. 

You can be a blue ocean church or a red ocean church.

Red ocean churches: 

The place where the ocean is red is where the fish are swarming to feed on the fresh meat.

Red ocean churches are all together feeding on the same fresh meat.  They all look alike.  They compete over the same people with the same things that every other church in town is doing.  Soccer mom worship, comtemporary services, and safe, predicatable talks that don't disturb anyone.    

Blue ocean churches: 

Go where no one else will go, and do what no one else is doing, to reach people no one else is reaching.

Their services point people to Jesus, thier worship is unique and powerful, their talks are direct, pointed, and not sugar-coated.

• Revolutionaries break all the rules to accomplish great things.

• We will do anything short of sin to depopulate hell (even make mistakes and fail).  

2 Final Truths:

-  We almost always overestimate what God wants to do with us in the short run.

-  We always undersestimate what God wants to do with us in the long run.

 

OK now I gotta go write my talk for this weekend.  See you tomorrow!

   

Florida, the Vote, and Dodge Ball

FLORIDA:  This is Kelly blogging for Eric, because he is busy suffering in Florida this week with Dave, Chris (Zim campus pastor), and Eric Whitman (from the Exchange Church) at the Exponential Church Conference.  I suppose sunny and 85 is pleasant to some people, but I personally prefer windy and 48.  You?

THE VOTE:  Saturday night's Crossing members voted unanimously to purchase the old Alliance Church building.  Well, almost unanimously.  One witty staff member voted "or".  If you wonder why that's funny, you must have missed this weekend's talk, and it'll be online soon for you to catch up.  Barring any complications, we anticipate full possession of the building around June 1.

DODGE BALL:  Student Ministries Pastor John Hill held his first event for high schoolers on Sunday night.  The dodge ball tourney was a roaring success, with 80+ in attendance.  If you know a student who attends The Crossing (or should), tell 'em to hook up with John--at the weekend services (just ask around), or call 651.366.0508.  And today's his birthday, so feel free to flood his voicemail with birthday wishes.

OK, I'm off to get a quote for paint for the building!

Unbelievable Crowds, Fighting the Demonic & The Hand of God

UNBELIEVABLE CROWDS!!
The Crossing just had the most amazing weekend in the history of our church's short life.  This weekend for our four Easter services we a combined total attendance of 1,275 PEOPLE!!  HOLY COW!!  JESUS CHRIST BLEW OUR MINDS!  WE PRAYED FOR 900, and He gave us 1,275!!

God is so amazing!!  To all of you that brought friends and family: THANK YOU!!  WAY TO BE THE CHURCH AND NOT JUST GO TO CHURCH!! 

• I know of people that are checking themselves into treatment after this weekend.  
• I know tons of people who were desperadoes that came back to God this weekend. 
• I know Christians who were encouraged and empowered and excited to follow a Jesus that isn't a wiener, but is STRONG AND WILD!! 

FIGHTING THE DEMONIC
This weekend was also the worst case of spiritual warfare I have ever seen in a set of weekend services.  I am now more than ever convinced that hell is real, and that Satan is fighting us with everything he has. 

Let me explain: 

1. At 2:00 Saturday Dave's computer died with all the production stuff for the weekend service (video, PowerPoint, Weekend Update, music etc.)  This computer usually runs perfectly.  It coincidentally crashes a few hours before the biggest service of our lives?  I think not.
2. The main speakers of our sound system quit in the middle of the first song of the 5:30 service on Saturday night.  It totally quit.  Our awesome system we had put in the ceiling just stopped working and the only sound was the floor monitors the band uses to hear themselves.  THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!!  The band thought quickly and turned the floor monitors to face the crowd, but we had to do the whole first service jammed with almost 400 people with a very very crappy sound mix.
3. My PowerPoint for the talk got messed up in the file transfer, and many of the slides were missing parts, which got me confused on stage about where I was in the talk, and what was going on. That never happens. 
4. Some of the production/staff radios died partway through Saturday night, so our teams could not communicate with each other . 
5. The curtain drop at the front of the service was held up with a big steel bar.  The couplings weren't fitting properly.  In practice, that bar fell down about 25 feet, narrowly missing several people.  It could have killed someone. We had to rework the curtain element to about 1/4 of the original size.

There were other things that went wrong as well, and Satan fought us harder than he has ever fought us, to see Christ's message defeated and ignored.  I know hell is real after this weekend.

The Hand of God:  HERE IS THE COOL THING
When you have the hand of God on your life and in your church, you don't need a perfect sound system, or great acoustics, or awesome special effects because the hand of God is there.  And when He is present, He kicks Satan's ass every time. 

And that is what He did this weekend.  In spite of all those issues, GOD SHOWED UP AND WON THE DAY!!  Tons of people told me that that was the most powerful Easter worship service they had ever been in.  Many desperate, hurting people got help and hope and surrendered to God's leadership.

WE WON WITH THE POWER OF CHRIST AND HELPED TO DEPOPULATE HELL THIS WEEKEND!! 

People think our church grows because we do fun things and have great bands and effects.  This is not the case.  WE GROW BECAUSE GOD SHOWS UP, AND HE CHANGES LIVES.  We don't need all that junk for Jesus to win.  All we need is Jesus. 

I am so thankful the hand of Christ is on our church.  I pray it always is.  Let's keep it up, Church!  We are depopulating hell!! 

WAY TO GOD!  YEAH GOD!!  THE CHURCH IS THE ONLY HOPE IN ALL THE WORLD.  JESUS SHOWED UP, AND HE IS STRONG AND WILD!! 

Taking Risks and Learning From Our Mistakes.

As a leader I absolutely believe we must take huge risks to reach people.  We must be willing to do things that no one else is doing to reach people no one else is reaching.  I believe that with all my heart.

However, sometimes because we aren't perfect we make mistakes in our attempts to reach people and we take it too far.  Sometimes what seems like a great idea at the time to reach people far from God, ends up not being such a great idea. 

For example: 
This past week I authorized some of the guys at church to make a video of me and some of the more risque' things I have said in a worship service.  I had them put them all together in one big long clip, all completely out of context, and when run together it was really, really funny.

If you were in the services where I said that stuff it will really make you laugh, and you know what my point was in context.  We then released this video on You Tube in hopes of some viral publicity.  It worked perfectly.  Within two days, hundreds of people had watched it and were talking about it all over the net.   

I even know of a few people who don't know Christ that are coming for the first time on Easter weekend because of this video. 

On the other hand, some people that I know and respect saw this video and it deeply offended them.  One guy who I really respect called me and said that out of context that video made me as a pastor look foolish and made our church look less than respectable.  Ouch!  I am still wincing.   

After listening to what he had to say, and watching the video again, I agreed with him.  I looked insane, and if this was someone's first exposure to our church it might actually scare them away from
The Crossing rather than encourage them to attend. 

So after a quick discussion with our key staff members and a prayer, we pulled the video. 

Our goal with everything we do is to make Jesus look good, and point someone to Him, and with this video, in hindsight, maybe we muddied the waters.  

I am writing about this today, because I want everyone to know that I own all the responsibility for every mistake our church makes, and I try to learn from them.   When I feel like a critic has some validity to their statements, I listen, own up to my junk and change.

On the other hand, I also want our church to know, I will continue to take big risks all the time, and I guarantee in the future if you are around our church long enough I will do something that will offend you, frustrate you, or embarrass you, in my attempt to reach people. 

It is just part of the nature of taking risks to de-populate hell.  We try things, we are unapologetic about trying things, and sometimes what feels like a good idea at the time turns out to be not as good as we thought.   

But that won't keep us from taking huge risks.  Because we must be willing to do things that no one else is doing to reach people no one else is reaching. 

A Building? What's Up With That?

At all our weekend services we announced that the Crossing might buy the old Alliance Church building where we do our Saturday services.  Before I explain this whole deal, let me put the emphasis on POSSIBLY!! It is all up in the air right now. 

But the reason why we announced it this past weekend is because according to Minnesota law and our church constitution, for us to purchase land or buildings, we are required to announce this to our membership 4 weekends in a row. 

So on the chance we might actually get to buy the thing, we thought it would be good to get our 4 weekends over with sooner rather than later. 

Ok, now on to why we are considering this.

1.  We have outgrown the theater.  It is now too small a space for us to keep reaching people.  The Alliance gym, on the other hand, can accommodate up to 400 in a service if we squeeze. (The theater can only seat 220.) 

2.  Rivers Christian Academy (which owns the building) needs to sell it immediately.  Right now they are a school board with no school and no income.  That is a bad spot to be in, so they need to sell the building quickly.  We, on the other hand, love the office space and worship space on Saturday, so it is a very good fit for us. 

3. The price is right.  That is all I will say about that right now, but God seems to really be opening up some doors.  Pray that the bank agrees, if this is God's will.

4.  Strategic location.  The building is located in the heart of Elk River, directly across the street from the high school, and our church is totally geared to that age group. 

5.  We can reach more people with this piece of property.  We are not about buildings we are about people, but this building can keep us in the heart of Elk River and give us an ability to keep reaching people.   

OK, so that is why we are doing this, and all I can tell you right now. 

If you are a Crossing member in good standing (you attend a small group; serve on a ministry team; tithe a portion of your income; and bring your friends) we have an informational meeting and vote on Saturday April 18th after the 7:00 service. 

Please pray about this. I'll keep you posted.