Posted on Monday, March 14, 2016

How to Worship

by Joshua Reich

Worship music has often been a battle ground in church. It is the reason many people come to a church and the reason many people leave a church. Did they sing the songs I like during the worship time? Was the music too loud or too quiet? Were the lights too bright? Too dark? Did they make me stand too long? Not long enough?

I was reading through Leviticus chapters 1 – 7 the other day, which cover the offerings and sacrifices the nation of Israel were to make to God. The specific laws: the kinds of animals, which side of the altar, which door they were supposed to enter from, who was supposed to kill the animal, who was to throw blood on the altar, what to wear, and it went on and on.

This can seem like one of those what’s-the-point moments in the Bible. Why did they record all these details for things we don’t do anymore? Is it just a foreshadowing of Jesus or to let us know the history of God’s people? It can also get kind of monotonous reading about another sacrifice.

Yet, I was struck by the details. And I don’t think God was trying to be difficult or give them a whole host of hoops to jump through simply to have hoops.

Worship is something we do everyday, whether it is God, our job, house, spouse, kids, dreams, or hopes. We also worship our hurts and pain by holding on to them and making them the focus of our lives and identity.

3 things that matter for worship today.

I think there is a lot of relevance from the beginning of Leviticus to our lives and churches.

1. Worship is easy to coast through. It is easy to walk into church, stand, sit, sing, listen to a prayer, recite a verse, take communion, open your Bible to hear a sermon and walk out. It is easy to simply coast through it. One of the reasons I think God goes to the detail of what kind of animal, which door to walk through, who does what, in what order is so that we see the importance of thinking through our worship and what is happening.

How to keep worship in your church fresh.

2. Worship is easy to make about me and what I want. It is easy to make what happens in a worship service about me and what I want. After all, I have a ton of choices on a Sunday morning. When we do this, we miss the point of worship. It has very little to do with what we want and all to do with who God is and who we are. Worship is an acknowledgement that we are not in charge, that we are not God and that we don’t deserve to have access to God, but should be under God’s wrath if not for His grace and the sacrifice of His Son in our place.

How to make worship about God and not what you want.

3. It is easy to leave repentance out of worship. In the Old Testament there is a continual reminder of atoning for sins as the nation of Israel sacrificed animals. Hebrews 4 teaches that Jesus is our High Priest, and now we have access to God. This means we don’t need to sacrifice animals, we don’t have to continually atone for sins because of what Jesus did “once and for all.” Yet we too easily walk into God’s presence with unconfessed sin. We need the reminder of starting with repentance, of bringing our sin, our idols, hurts and anger to God. Before walking to communion, before giving God our lists of wants and needs, to remind ourselves of our need for Him and acknowledging the grace He has extended to us. I know my heart changes and my attitude changes when I start with repentance. It changes my perspective of what is happening.

Worship starts with repentance.

Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2016

How to Plan an Effective Easter Service

by Joshua Reich

Every year around this time I get questions from other pastors or people in our church about why we don’t do a normal Easter service on Easter Sunday. The thinking goes, “Churches will have people who only come once or twice a year, so you need to hit them with the Easter message. Don’t miss this opportunity.”

Do you have the right goal for your Easter sermon?

And while I understand this thinking, I think it is shortsighted, which leads me to my answer:

Don’t miss the opportunity of Easter.

We do an Easter message every week. At Revolution we end all our services by taking communion. The goal of every sermon is to get to the resurrection. Notice I didn’t say cross, but that’s a different post. Each and every week we do the same thing: “We are broken and can’t fix ourselves. Our only hope is found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.” Easter is just one out of 52 times we do this each year.
Create a reason to come back next week. I have two goals on Easter: helping people take the step of following Jesus for those who are ready, and getting everyone else to come back the week after Easter. Therefore, you have to create a reason for them to come back. Pastors do not put enough effort into this and just hope people will come back. This is why I love to start a series on Easter. In years past we’ve started a series on the Gospel of John and looked at how change works from Galatians. Last year we kicked off a relationship series on Easter. Give them a reason to come back. Never end a series on Easter; that communicates, too bad you missed all the cool stuff!
If they only come on Easter, give it a twist so they don’t get bored. Unchurched people are smarter than we often give them credit for. They come on Easter, think they know the story, what you will say and how it will end. Because of this, they tune it out and wait until it ends so they can go back to their life. What if you hit them with an unexpected twist, hit a felt need they weren’t expecting you to talk about? The resurrection is our hope in all things in life; start with the brokenness it is the hope for. Too often Easter messages are geared towards Christians. I understand the tension because they are the ones who complain if they don’t like your Easter message. Everyone simply doesn’t come back.

3 things that should happen on Easter at your church.

Posted on Monday, March 7, 2016

Monday Morning Mind Dump…

by Joshua Reich

Sunday was our 8th week at our new location.
God has done so much in that time.
We’ve had 4 people take the step of following Jesus.
We’ve had 56 first time guests and 27 of them have returned for a 2nd and a 3rd time!
The response to our Future Family series has been incredible.
If you missed any of the weeks or want to watch them again, you can do so here.
If you weren’t there yesterday, you can watch & listen to it here.
I got to spend some time last week with the other area leads from Acts 29 West.
Love praying and planning with those guys to plant more churches in the western United States.
It’s also amazing to hear what God is doing around the world.
I’ve been spending some time working on our upcoming series Romans.
Feeling a little overwhelmed by the idea of spending the rest of the year in Romans, but really excited about it at the same time.
There is so much in there.
It’s easy to see how people spend years preaching through Romans.
If you follow me, you know I’m pretty into crossfit and right now is the crossfit open.
These workouts are hard every year, but this is a new level of crazy.
I’m doing 16.2 today and it looks brutal.
Read a great leadership book last week, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading; highly, highly recommend it.
So much great insight for leaders and the difficulties of leading, but how those difficulties often come from the leader.
We’re hosting a dinner party this week which should be fun.
We’re part of a group that does a monthly dinner party with all the food from one country.
This month, at our house, is Irish night for St. Patricks day.
Always a good time.
Blessed to have friends that love food and are great cooks!

Posted on Monday, March 7, 2016

How to Grow as a Leader as Your Church Grows

by Joshua Reich

There has been a lot written about church growth barriers, what they are, how to break them and get past them. The reality, though, is a church will only grow as much as the leader grows.

Every church experiences barriers at different points, but they are usually around the same size: 60, 100, 200, 400, 800, etc. While barriers can happen at other times, these are usually the ones discussed.

I was talking to someone the other day about how things change at different times in a church, and it got me thinking about the barriers and what changes at each one.

5 questions every leader needs to ask each year.

1. What new temptations do you face? As a church grows, leaders face new temptations. There are new ways to cut corners, new perks that creep up, and it is easy to start believing your own press. It is also easy as a leader of a growing church to start to think you are too big for some things, and while your job changes you are still a leader, and leaders are to serve.

When you start a church and there are just a few people on your launch team, you face unique temptations. While some temptations follow a leader through the life cycle of a church, some temptations are unique to sizes of a church.

Every time your church grows, ask: What new temptations do I face?

2. What things must you stop doing? Peter Drucker asks, “What can you stop doing that nobody would notice?” John Maxwell thinks a leader could stop doing 80% of what they are doing, and nobody would notice. While that might seem high, there are a number of things you should stop doing. It might be because you aren’t as good at those things, but usually the things you do keep you from doing what only you can do. As a church grows and as you grow, the things that only you can do, the things that you are wired to do, might change. This is why it is important to consistently ask this question.

Leaders must ask themselves on a regular basis what they need to stop doing.

3. What things must you start doing? A helpful grid to think through is, what things must I do or else this thing falls apart? Another way to think about this is, are there things I am not doing right now that I need to start? Or, are there things I need to give more time to than I currently give to those things?

4. What is keeping you and your church from going to the next level? A leader lives in two worlds: the world of the present and the vision of the future. This is a tension of leadership, but it is one you should invite because you are the leader. A leader must continue to ask, “What do I need to do to keep my church healthy and growing? What can I learn or grow in to take my church to the next level?” That next level is not always a size issue. It might be growing in personal productivity, preaching or care. It might be getting better at reading culture or developing leaders. There is always a next level to go to.

For me, each year I think through one aspect of my job that I need to grow in. I ask for input from those closest to me, and then I look for resources and people doing that well and learn from them.

What is one thing this year you need to grow in?

5. What am I afraid of now? I heard Matt Keller say this on a podcast recently and felt very convicted by it.

Many leaders make most of their decisions out of fear.

If you think about it, you make a lot of decisions as a leader out of fear; fear of people, finances, success, failure, your team, what you look like to others. While every pastor has fears throughout his ministry career, there are specific ones at each size. What are they? They will be unique to you as a leader, but you must identify them. You must be on the lookout for them.

5 questions every leader should wrestle with today.

Posted on Friday, March 4, 2016

4 Thoughts to Help You Grow as a Pastor

by Joshua Reich

Here are 4 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, husband and father. I hope they help you too:

5 Unusual Productivity Ideas by Kevin Eikenberry
6 Benefits to Having a Church Staff Blog by Thom Rainer
The One Quality Every Leader Needs to Succeed by Lolly Daskal
Why You Need to Change how you Preach by Karl Vaters

Posted on Monday, February 29, 2016

How God Turns Shame and Guilt into Joy

by Joshua Reich

Jesus’ first miracle wasn’t just about wine—it was an act of purification from the Messiah, one that saved people from generations of sin and shame.

All of us have things in our lives we aren’t proud of.

These are things that maybe you’ve done or have been done to you. Your parents’ marriage may have fallen apart, and you find yourself still feeling the effects. It may be your marriage wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It might be a sin or addiction that you are ashamed of, something that you wish you could stop. The kind of thing that after doing it, you feel dirty like you need to take a shower. Only, there isn’t really anything you can do to feel clean.

It wasn’t until working on a sermon on John 2 that I began to see the significance of Jesus’ first miracle. A miracle that, according to Tim Keller, can be seen as simply fixing a social oversight, but has so much more going on:

When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. –John 2:3–11

During this time, marriage was an enormous event. The entire town would be invited and the celebration would last for up to a week. This was not simply about the couple, but was a sign of the strength of the town and community.

For the wine to run out was not a simple party oversight. This would be seen as an insult to the town and the guests. The ramifications of this happening could be felt for decades to come in terms of standing in the community, business dealings, and overall appearance. The shame heaped upon this family would be no small thing. In the same way, the shame in our lives that we carry around often comes from things in our families past. We feel the effects of an abusive grandfather we have never met or an alcoholic grandmother who is whispered about.

But Jesus didn’t just change water into wine to save this family from embarrassment and shame.

SWEETEST PURIFICATION

You see, for the Jewish people, weddings were a sign of the Messiah. Weddings were a picture of his coming, of what heaven would be like. There were also prophecies in Joel, Hosea, and Amos indicating that wine would flow freely over a barren, dry land from the Messiah (Joel 2:24; 3:18; Hosea 14:7; Amos 9:3). This imagery would not be lost on the Jews who saw this miracle.

John also points out that Jesus had them fill up purification jars. This was not what they normally used for wine, as these were the jars the Jews used to cleanse themselves to worship God, to enter the temple, to purify them. Jesus, at a wedding, which is a picture of the Messiah coming, with wine. Using purification jars that are used to make one right with God, turning guilt and shame into joy.

Later in the Gospels, Jesus will bring his disciples together for a Passover meal, hold up wine and declare it to be his blood (Matt. 26:28). Then, in Revelation 21, John tells us that when Jesus returns, it will be as a bridegroom at a wedding (Rev. 21:2).

PERSONAL JESUS

It is easy for us to miss all this without the history and picture. But, we do another thing that hinders our joy. When we read in the Gospel and Epistles of John about God loving the world or Jesus taking away the sins of the world, we picture “the world,” a globe filled with people. We don’t picture ourselves.

This past Easter at my church, we had a huge cross in a service where we wrote down specific sins that Jesus died for. It was quite an experience listing sins that Jesus has forgiven me of, that Jesus died for. It was a great picture for me to see, Jesus turned my shame into joy through his death and resurrection.

How to Simplify Your Life by Bill Hybels

I just finished reading Simplify: Ten Practices to Unclutter Your Soul by Bill Hybels, and it is a really helpful book.

How to simplify your life.

What’s it about?

When we spend our lives doing things that keep us busy but don’t really matter, we sacrifice the things that do.

Key Takeaway

The chapter on friendships was incredibly helpful to me personally. As our world becomes more transient, it seems like people are moving in and out of my family on a regular basis. Whether they finish school, get a job in a new city, move back to where their family lives or get deployed, people move and relationships change. This is hard and painful. I really appreciated the way he talked about seasonal friends (those who will be in our lives for a season) and lifelong friends. We want lifelong friends but will have more seasonal friends, and that’s okay, but we need to know how to walk through it.

Some things that stood out

Simplified living is about more than doing less. It’s being who God called us to be, with a wholehearted, single-minded focus. It’s walking away from innumerable lesser opportunities in favor of the few to which we’ve been called and for which we’ve been created. It’s a lifestyle that allows us, when our heads hit the pillow at night, to reflect with gratitude that our day was well invested and the varied responsibilities of our lives are in order.
What sorts of things fill your bucket? What refuels you? What activities or engagements restore your energy levels? What do you need to do to start pouring new streams of replenishment into your badly depleted life? What relationships inspire you? What do you read that elevates your perspective? What in your life is actually a bucket-filler for you?
Read any study on the topic of what adds energy and vitality to your life, and you’ll find that most experts agree: Exercise and proper rest patterns give about a 20 percent energy increase in an average day, average week, average month.
You are the boss of your schedule. It’s your responsibility to keep command of your calendar—and you must in order to simplify your life.
Your calendar is more than merely an organizer for what needs to get done; it’s the primary tool for helping you become who you want to become.
My schedule is far less about what I want to get done and far more about who I want to become.

Simple ways to simplify your life.

Posted on Monday, February 22, 2016

The Most Important Trait for Success

by Joshua Reich

What is the most important trait for success?

Do you know what separates the winners and the losers when it comes to leadership and succeeding?

It isn’t what you think.

This one thing separates the winners and losers in life.

I was listening to a podcast interview recently where Thom Rainer was interviewing John Maxwell, and Rainer asked Maxwell what is the most important leadership trait for success, and Maxwell replied, “Consistency.”

I had to rewind it.

Consistency.

If you ever read a biography about an athlete or watch stories on the Olympics about those who make it and win, what you will hear is the story of a person who got up early everyday, ate a strict diet, everyday. Did the same stuff, everyday. Practiced, practiced and practiced some more. They were consistent.

That isn’t exciting, sexy or anything. That isn’t about vision, team building, recruiting or fund raising.

Yet if you think about it, it fuels all of leadership.

It fuels vision. No one will follow you to that next great hill, that next great destination, if they don’t trust you and believe in you. They won’t follow you as far if you are new compared to having a track record. Are you consistent? If so, people will follow you further.

It fuels team building. People want to be a part of a team that has a great track record. They want to be with a leader that has been around and accomplished a lot. They are hesitant to follow someone with a lot of turnover on a team. They want someone – wait for it – consistent.

The same goes with recruiting.

Now comes fundraising. This is crucial in church leadership. Your ministry has a ceiling, and it comes from a variety of places, but one of those places is finances. The leaders who are able to raise the most money have a track record of handling money well. They have a track record of being in one place, having a strong team, strong vision, strong character.

They are consistent.

It fuels leadership.

The most important & overlooked trait of leadership.

It fuels success.

The most important & overlooked trait for success.

People may say a lot about you as a leader, but would they say you are consistent? Are you the same person everywhere?

Here’s something that can frustrate you as a leader. You want to start something new, and people don’t want to come along. You think it is them. They just don’t see what you see. They aren’t as spiritual, they don’t have big enough faith. We as leaders tell ourselves all kinds of things about why people don’t get on board with something, and the things we tell ourselves are always about the people.

What if you haven’t been consistent, and people are hesitant? What if the reason people don’t want to give is they aren’t sure you’ll complete the project and stay?

Leadership is vision casting, team building and all those things. But it starts and ends with character and consistency.

Posted on Thursday, February 18, 2016

6 Thoughts to Help You Grow as a Leader

by Joshua Reich

Here are 6 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, husband and father. I hope they help you too:

Why the 8-Hour Workday Doesn’t Work by Dr. Travis Bradberry (Talent Smart)
4 Temptations Leaders Face by Dan Reiland
How to Design a Message Series that Engages Unchurched People by Carey Nieuwhof
3 Boundaries Every Leader Needs with Critics by Charles Stone
Why You Shouldn’t Pursue the Work-Life Balance by Shawn Murphy
8 Secrets of Great Communicators by Dr. Travis Bradberry (Entrepreneur)

Posted on Tuesday, February 16, 2016

How to Not Have a Big Day at Church

by Joshua Reich

Big days are crucial in the life of any church. They are a launching pad to something new. Whether that is a new ministry season, a new sermon series, sign-ups for small groups, classes, VBS, starting a new church, or moving to a new location, all of these are opportunities for a big day and creating new momentum.

That’s what a big day does. It starts something new. It creates or sustains momentum.

Big days don’t just happen. They must be planned for. If you aren’t careful, though, you can miss these crucial opportunities.

Yes, the Holy Spirit brings momentum that you can’t create and can’t explain. Yes, the Holy Spirit wants your church to grow and reach people who don’t know Jesus. This means there are things you can and should do to work with the Holy Spirit to have a big day. You can also do things to make sure you don’t have a big day.

Here are six ways to not have a big day:

6 ways to not have a big day at your church.

1. Don’t tell anyone. If you want to have a big day, if something new is happening at your church, tell people. Their lives are busy, they aren’t always thinking about church, the new series, new program or new opportunity. Many times this is how things happen in a church. New sermon series, no one knows. New groups are getting started, there isn’t a clear path to them.

If you don’t tell anyone about your church, no one will know you exist.

2. Don’t preach on a felt need topic. If you want to create a big day around your Sunday service, you need to preach on a felt need topic. This doesn’t mean you go gospel light or don’t preach from a book of the Bible. You can launch a series on Romans and make it a big day, but you have to be creative with it. People don’t show up to your church because you are starting a series called “Romans.” Think through: When the people from my church invite someone, what will they say?

What you preach on is a crucial reason people show up to your church.

3. Create zero buzz. Big days and buzz go hand in hand. This might be having a photo booth, a giveaway, food trucks, a baptism, anything that is different from a normal week to create a “this is special” feeling.

4. Just expect people to find your church. If you look at most church websites, it can take awhile for you to find where they meet. In fact, I knew of one church that moved into a new facility, and yet the front page of their website had their old address for several months as where they met, after they moved into their new facility. Most churches simply expect people to come looking for them. That rarely happens. Most people aren’t choosing church; they are choosing football, hiking, skiing, the lake, sleeping in or running errands.

Want your church to die? Expect people to just find it on their own.

5. Don’t give anyone in your church a reason to invite someone. The reason your people aren’t inviting anyone to your church is because you haven’t given them a reason to invite someone. I know you have told them, maybe guilted them, but people invite their friends to something worthwhile. If you can’t remember the last time someone invited someone to your church, or you can’t remember the last time you did it, ask why not? What is keeping them from taking that step? Are you doing something wrong as a church? Do your people feel weird about inviting people to your church?

If you don’t give people a reason to invite people to church, they won’t.

6. Don’t pray for it. New people, momentum, people beginning a relationship with Jesus, marriages being saved, and the chains of addiction being broken come from the Holy Spirit. If you don’t pray for it, a big day will pass you by. You can plan, be creative, give away a car and nothing will change.