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, 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.

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.

Posted on Wednesday, February 10, 2016

How to Invite Someone to Church

by Joshua Reich

It can be awkward inviting someone to church. We have fears about the relationship changing. What if they think we’re weird, or worse think we’re just friends with them so we can invite them to church?

Yet the reason you attend a church is, somewhere along the way, someone decided to take a risk, to take a chance and invite you. They knew that everything would change if you heard about Jesus, if you saw life-changing community unfold before you and thought, “I have to invite this person to my church.”

But how do you know if it is time to take that risk? How do you do it?

First, how do you know if you should invite someone?

There are clues to listen to when you talk to someone. Andy Stanley calls these “the not cues.” When you hear a person say something like, “Things are not going well.” Or, “I’m not prepared for…” Or, “I am not from here, we just moved to the area.”

When you hear any of these, you know it is worth the risk. Often the person who says these things is searching for something. They may not think it is Jesus, but it is.

Another way is to know what your church is preaching on and finding someone who would benefit from that. Maybe your church is doing a series on marriage, and you have a friend who is struggling in their marriage. Invite them. It might be a series on apologetics, and you have a friend who loves to argue about religion or has questions about who Jesus is and why Christianity is true. Invite them.

Once you decide to take the risk, and hopefully you do, the next question is how. That is an awkward moment. I remember this past Christmas inviting a friend to church, and when they didn’t come I thought, “Great, now it’s going to be weird.” Usually it isn’t. I saw them a week later, and it was fine. Life moved on, so don’t fear. I’ll ask them again.

You can call, text, email, share a Facebook event page or talk to them. Hand them an invite card. Take them out to lunch afterward to answer questions they have or simply to hang out with them. Be sure when you bring them to introduce them to people. Especially your pastor; he’ll love to meet your friend.

Let me end with this.

You never know when a simple invite can change a life. Hopefully your life has changed because of attending your church. This is a chance to change someone’s life and eternity, to help them see the life found only in Jesus.

Posted on Thursday, January 21, 2016

How to Figure out God’s Will

by Joshua Reich

Every time you say yes to something, you say no to something else.

This truth has had an enormous impact on how I live my life, how I make decisions, how we do our calendar as a family and how I lead Revolution Church.

But how do you know what to say yes and no to? That’s the most common question I get from someone who has read my book or has heard me say this in a talk. Honestly, it’s different for each person.

Too often we focus on what we want to do in the next day, week or month and then make a decision based on that. Let me frame it a different way for you: What kind of person do you want to become in the next month? In the next half year? One year from now, who do you want to be?

Will this involve doing something? Yes, but it changes the context.

For example, if a year from now you want to be closer to Jesus than you are today, a stronger disciple, then you will make the choice to say yes to community, yes to serving in your church, yes to reading your Bible, and yes to inviting people to church. That will then determine what you say no to.

Often we hope that something will happen. We will simply become kinder, more generous, thinner or smarter without putting in the work or even be willing to make a choice towards something. If you want to become a person who is known for ________, then you will have to make decisions for that to happen. A wish and a hope are not enough.

How to figure out God’s will for your life.

Take your marriage or another relationship. What if six months from now that relationship was stronger? It would mean that what you are doing right now would have to change. You would need to make more of an effort, you would have to say yes to giving time and energy to that relationship and saying no to something else (ie. golfing, sleeping in, working too late).

We often think we have no power over where our life goes, what our marriage becomes, the relationship we have with God or how kind we are. Yet we do. Every day we make decisions that get our life somewhere.

Here’s the problem: we never sit down to ask, Where do I want to end up?

How to figure out God’s calling in your life.

Posted on Thursday, January 14, 2016

How to be a Team in Marriage

by Joshua Reich

Many times when I talk to couples who are frustrated in their marriage, how their spouse reacts to or helps/hurts them in reaching their goals comes up.

A common cause of frustration and arguments in marriage.

I’ve heard couples tell me, “We’re getting divorced because she is holding me back.” One woman told me, “He just isn’t on board with what I want to do with my life, so we’re going our separate ways.”

This is easy to do.

After all, didn’t we get married so we could have a teammate help us accomplish what we want to accomplish?

The cycle in marriage becomes about what we want and the goals we have in our heads: completing school, starting a business/church, certain financial benchmarks. When our spouse doesn’t get on board they are just dead weight getting in the way.

I realized a few years ago that I had made our marriage and family all about my goals. I’m a pretty driven person, and so we moved to Arizona to plant a church. We talked together about what this would mean, but as our kids started to get older, I realized that in my goal setting and drivenness, I left little room for Katie to explore her goals and dreams.

Does your spouse have room for their dreams in your marriage?

Now there are times in a marriage when you put the goals of one over the other. Maybe an opportunity comes along you can’t pass up. Maybe you decide when you get married that when you have kids the wife will stay home with the kids, so getting the man’s career off the ground matters greatly.

If you aren’t careful though, eventually a marriage will revolve around one person, and it can slowly suck the life and dreams out of the other.

Let me suggest a good (but scary) question to discuss as a couple: Are there any dreams you have right now that I am keeping you from reaching?

Now there are some dreams you have to let go of simply because you chose to get married. There are some dreams you let go of because you have kids. Not all of them, but your life is different now.

Usually the reason we don’t create space for our spouse is our selfishness. We will dress it up in different ways. Church planters will dress it up in God’s will. I did this for a long time. God called me to plant a church, she said yes to it, so it’s now our calling and our goal.

A conversation every pastor and his wife MUST have.

Let me speak to pastors for a minute. You help the people in your church discern God’s will for their lives. You help them learn how God has gifted them and how to best use those gifts and talents. Do you do that for your wife? She is part of your church. Who is she apart from being a pastor’s wife? Who is she as a person who attends your church, and what has God called her to?

Too many couples either give up hope on accomplishing something together, or if given enough time, their dreams will well up inside of them until they will begin thinking about pursuing them apart from the other person.

When, if you took the step of being a teammate to your spouse, you could unleash their dreams together.

How to stand with your spouse instead of against them.

Posted on Monday, January 11, 2016

How Does Your Church Make Decisions?

by Joshua Reich

Most people don’t realize it, but the one thing leaders spend the majority of their time on is decision making.

I know you think you spend a lot of time on relationships and in meetings, but when you boil leadership down, much of it is spent on decisions.

Most churches don’t have a strong decision making grid that they look through. For many churches, decisions are made based on cost, if they will lose people (or make people mad) or who thought of the idea (if it is a person with power, that gives more weight to the idea in most churches).

Facing a decision at work? Here’s how to make the right one.

While there are some valid points to those, making decisions through that grid won’t always get your church to where God wants it or accomplish the vision God has given you.

Think of your decision making grid as the hills you are going to die on. These aren’t necessarily theological hills, because the theological hills you will die on should kill a decision before it gets too far.

This a philosophical grid.

Here are some questions to consider for your grid:

As you make a decision, will how that decision affects the next generation or empty nesters be the factor that pushes it over the edge?
Are the opinions of churched people or unchurched people more important?
How much does money factor into the decision?
How much risk are you willing to take?
Who are you willing to lose?
Who do you hope to gain?

A grid to help your church staff make decisions.

Posted on Thursday, January 7, 2016

5 Systems Every Church Needs

by Joshua Reich

Depending on who you ask about church systems, you will either get excited looks about the potential of them and how they can help people, or you will get looks of disgust because they sound like the business world and not very shepherding.

Yet the reason many churches fail is not because of a lack of caring but a lack of intentionality.

The reason many churches fail is not because of a lack of caring but a lack of intentionality.

They are led by pastors who are incredibly relational and shepherding but lack the organizational skills to help people grow. And that is the crucial piece of that word failure. I’m not talking about not growing but about failing to help people reach the growth in their discipleship that God has for them.

In a small church, that happens one-on-one with a pastor. As a church grows, that must begin to spread out or there will be a lid on how many people a church can disciple and help grow in their relationship with Jesus.

The answer to that dilemma: systems.

Many large churches have these systems down and do a great job at them. Sadly, many church plants need these systems but do not have them in place, so they fail to get the traction they’d like or see the growth in the lives of their people.

Here are five systems you need to have in place to not only grow as a church, but help your people grow:

5 systems every church plant needs to grow.

1. First time guest. When a guest shows up at your church, what happens? How do you know they came? When you are smaller as a church, you know someone is a guest because you know everyone, or the guest comes dressed up and the regular attenders don’t do that. But as you grow it becomes easier for people to slip in and out. It is good to give people anonymity until they’re ready to let themselves be known to you. But when they are ready, how will they tell you? Is it a connection card? What will you do with that information? If you get a connection card this Sunday, what happens to that on Monday?

You can’t leave that to chance.

I remember hearing Rick Warren say once, “God sends people to churches who are ready for those people to come.” I believe that is true. Many churches that are growing can tell you what happens when someone walks in their doors.

“God sends people to churches who are ready for those people to come.” -Rick Warren

We give something to a guest because we want to break down the barrier that the church wants something from them. That makes people defensive, especially men, as they are waiting for the church to ask for something. Instead we give them a gift, and then after their first time with us we send them a Starbucks gift card to say thanks. I get so many comments from second time guests who tell me they returned to our church because when they went to Starbucks, they thought of our church.

2. New believer. If someone became a Christian this Sunday in your church, what would you do? Of course you would be excited, but in that excitement do you have a plan for that person to help them grow? More than likely it would involve meeting with the pastor of the church. What if 25 people became followers of Jesus this Sunday? Now, you can’t meet with all those people. So what happens?

This is where you need a system and a plan to know what happens. Who do they talk to? Do they take a class? Do you have people in your church prepared and ready to talk with new believers?

5 systems every growing church has.

3. First time giver. Giving can get weird in churches because it’s money and it’s private. Many pastors think it is wrong to know who gives in your church. I don’t see that anywhere in the Bible. Now if you struggle with treating bigger givers differently than those who give less, than that is something to work through, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Giving is a spiritual gift that many people in your church have, just like leadership and mercy are a spiritual gift. My hunch is that you know who has the gift of leadership, evangelism or hospitality in your church. You should know who has the gift of giving. And just as an aside, just because someone gives a lot does not make them the wealthiest people in your church, and you already know who the wealthiest people in your church are simply by going to their house and seeing their car and clothes.

In the same way that you should know who has the gift of giving in your church, you should know who gives for the first time in your church and do something with that. That is a huge step of faith on their part. Many pastors overlook that because they are always thinking about the budget and bills, and when someone gives that’s just helpful. But that person is now saying, “I want to grow in my faith. I want to hold loosely to what God has given me and trust Him. I’m bought in here to the point that I’m giving my money.” That is a huge step!

Celebrate that. Help that person continue to grow in that. They may have the gift of giving, they may not, but have a plan to help that person grow in that discipline. Giving is a crucial piece of spiritual growth and being a disciple of Jesus. Don’t let it happen by chance.

4. Community and relationships. Every church leader knows that growth happens best in the context of relationships. We preach on it and tell people that, but we fail to realize that community and moving into a small group of some kind is a huge step for people. It’s a time commitment in an already busy schedule. There is the fear of going to a house of a person they don’t know. How long will the group meet? Many groups are meeting until Jesus returns. What happens if the person goes to a group and doesn’t like it or the leader? Now it is really awkward when they see that person at church, and so many people choose to skip it all together.

These are barriers you have to get past if you want to see people enter into relationships at your church. We’ve experimented with three month small groups and told people, “You can do P90x for 90 days; try a group for 90 days.” We’ve also started to encourage people to enter a serving team first before joining a group. It is less of a commitment in their mind and still gets them shoulder to shoulder with other followers of Jesus. And serving helps you in your spiritual growth.

5. Leadership development. This last one took us the longest to develop, and because of that I believe it really stunted our health and growth as a church. Every pastor wants more leaders in his church. If you want to plant churches, you want men around you who want to plant churches. Yet many pastors simply hope those people will find their churches. If your church is near a seminary or a Bible college, that may just happen and will mask that you don’t have a plan to develop leaders.

Think about it like this: if you wanted to have 10 elder caliber leaders a year from now, how would you develop them? What would have to happen for that to occur?

If you want to plant a church two years from now and that person would come from within your church right now, how would you get that person ready? How would you find that person?

You need a leadership development system.

5 systems every church needs to be healthy.

Like I said at the beginning, systems are often seen as bad or mechanical, so many shepherding leaders don’t use them. Systems help move people in their relationship with Jesus. Systems are crucial to the health of your church and the growth of your people.

Church systems are crucial to the health of your church and the growth of your people.

Posted on Monday, January 4, 2016

How do I Get my Husband to Lead at Home?

by Joshua Reich

One of the questions Katie and I get a lot is, “How do I get my husband to lead at home?”

How do I get my husband to lead at home?

One of the biggest reasons men don’t lead at home is twofold: 1) They don’t think they can do it, and 2) Their wife is leading (because he isn’t and stuff has to get done), and she is very good at it.

2 reasons men don’t lead in their home.

One thing men don’t do often is duplicate efforts. If you as a wife are leading at home, taking up the mantle of the spiritual life of your family, keeping the family on track in scheduling to make sure you aren’t overwhelmed, he won’t do it.

While Scripture calls men to lead in their homes, most women do it, and honestly most women are better suited to do it. But as I have seen over and over, and Scripture is on point with this, when we get off track from God’s way, even with gifting in the mix, it is disastrous.

So if you are doing anything you want your husband to do, stop doing it.

I remember Katie pulling me aside one time and saying, “I really want you to do _____ in our family, and right now I’m doing it. I’m going to stop doing it in hopes that you will pick it up.” I didn’t start overnight, but I was able to see the importance in something.

I think for a man to lead, he needs to drive the bus of what comes into his home in terms of TV and entertainment, protecting his family on the internet and what is taught spiritually. This does not mean he does it all. In fact, Katie does more of this than I do because she spends more time with the kids, but she looks for me to lead the charge on this.

Protect your family’s schedule. This means you need to make sure date nights and daddy dates are happening, you aren’t involved in too many things and you make sure priorities happen. (Which means if you make baseball practice and scouts more of a priority than church and community for 10 years, don’t be surprised when your kids go to college and leave church. It is not the church’s fault; the onus is on you as a man.)

Women, if your husband isn’t doing this, don’t berate him, don’t send him a link to this (unless you’ve talked about it), don’t hand him a book or tell him there are husbands doing this, so he needs to step up.

Ask God, pray for him, ask God to make him into the man God wants him to be, not the man you want him to be. And stop doing the things God has called him to do, even if that means something might not get done for a time.

Let me end with this. Men often struggle to do something they think they might not be good at, even the real risk-taking adventurous guys. They will take risks at work, but they are often scared to death about failing in front of their wife or kids. This is often the biggest barrier to a man taking the lead at home. This gives the wife a great opportunity to cheer him on and help him succeed.

A barrier to men leading at home is their fear of failure.

Too many people do not set their spouse up to succeed. If you want your husband to take the lead at home, instead of nagging him one more time, how could you help him succeed? How could you cheer him on? What is one thing you could do to partner with him in this?

3 ways to get your husband to lead at home.