Sailors, Saints, & Sinners

Where Does It Come From?

A question I frequently get asked is “Where do we get our ideas for message series?”  The answer is from a lot of sources:  other churches, other speakers, books, our own insights from Scripture, what we hear people talking about, etc. 

Let me share specifics regarding our worship and message planning and how we draw from other speakers, churches, organizations, and the Holy Spirit to develop our worship services and messages.

Other Speakers

Vince Dooley said it the other day:  “I am part of all I have met.”  For me it could say, “I am part of all I have listened to.”  To be honest I have taken notes during every sermon I have every heard since around high school … and I still have those notes!!  Since I did not go to seminary, I basically had to learn to communicate and preach by reading books, listening to other speakers, and just by doing it (and I am still learning).  Here are a few of the speakers who have shaped me and influenced me:

• Rick Warren, Saddleback Church
• Andy Stanley, North Point Church
• Charles Stanley, First Baptist Church Atlanta
• Perry Noble, NewSpring Church
• My wife, Beth (She has taken preaching classes.  She gives good feedback, encouragement, and asks great ?’s)

Partnerships

This is one of the newest and neatest things going on in the church world today, especially among new churches.  We partcipate in or are members of several organizations/ministries that provide resources for worship services.  We use other churches’ materials and other churches use our material as we partner together for the cause of Christ.  This is done free of charge (in most cases) and with permission.  In a few cases, we might pay for the right to use a graphic, song arrangement, sermon content, drama, video, etc.  As part of partnering with these churches and ministries, permission is given to use the material for the cause of Christ.

There is an incredible movement of cooperation and collaboration going on in the church world as we share ideas, wisdom, and insights in an effort to reach more people for Christ. This occurs through blogs, conferences, roundtables, email, and online services. {Click here for a list of churches/ministries doing this sort of thing formally through their web sites.}  Churches are even sharing organizational charts, policy manuals, budgets, small group structures, etc.  Just since January 2007 our staff has made trips to Mountainlake Church in Cumming, GA; NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC; Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC; and WestRidge Church in Paulding County.

I am so thankful for churches like these and their leaders!! 

Let me give some specific examples of where ideas come from in a few of our recent series and give credit to several churches and organizations that have and will continue to help us.

SERIES:  OFF ROAD {Feb. 2007}… the series logo was designed by Ken Wilson of NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC.  The message concepts came primarily from a book by Bill Hybels called Just Walk Across the Room. 

SERIES:  MY SECRETS {May 2007}… the logo & title came from www.lifechurch.tv which makes all of their resources available online for FREE.  The message concepts were derived mainly from Andy Stanley’s book, It Came From Within, made available via North Point Resources.

SERIES:  GOD & YOUR BOD {July 2007} … Series title came from North Point.

Other Churches & Ministries We Use:

• NewSpring Ministries  (free and unrestricted access to sermons, order of services, video & graphics).  You can view their stated goal here.
• Seacoast Resources (free access)
• North Point Resources (some material is free; whole section for church leaders)
• Creative Pastors (pay for the right to use and access to materials)
• Willow Creek Association resources (pay for the right to use)
• www.pastors.com (Rick Warren’s resource area for pastors and church leaders)
• www.lifechurch.tv (the pioneer of free and unrestricted use of materials)

The Holy Spirit

Everything good that has every occurred in a Rock Bridge service has been from God.  We rely on the Holy Spirit to prepare us, and then prepare the service or message.  I get ideas from my Quiet Time, from just thinking, from meditation, and from impressions God gives me or our team.   Our team prays, prepares, and works through each service and each message.  I take all the ideas, content, illustrations, points, etc. wherever they came from and organize them in a way that fits who I am as a communicator, in a way that I believe will connect the best with our people, and in the way I sense God leading me. 

The bottom line is we have a process for each series and each worship service.  The process includes prayer, internal teamwork, external cooperative and collaboration, and most importantly, the Holy Spirit’s direction.

I’m Ahead!!

It’s official.  I am now 3 weeks ahead on my sermon preparation.   This means that 80-90% of my messages are done for the next 2 Sundays and I am currently working on the message 3 weeks out.  Perry Noble and Andy Stanley both advocate this method of sermon preparation. 

So I worked ‘overtime’ for about 2 weeks to get ahead and now I’m ahead and already I am realized the benefits.  Additionally, Greg is pretty excited because he can find music, songs, and other creative elements a lot easier with 2 weeks notice than 3 days notice!!

Being ahead is (so far) doing the following:

• Marination.  Ideas have longer to soak into my brain and heart.  I can read and listen to more material related to the message topic and get better ideas and illustrations to make communicating easier.
• 911.  When an emergency or crisis happens in my life or in the church, I am better able to respond without having to sacrifice my study, prayer, and preparation time.
• Creative Process.  We are now planning services that are 2 or more weeks out.  We can pay more attention to the details.  We can work through songs, transitions, videos, etc. a whole lot easier and as a result be more ‘excellent’ on Sunday morning.
• Holy Spirit.  Being ahead gives God a greater window to speak to me.  I used to prepare mostly on Wednesday and Thursday and then review the message on Friday.  Now the message is done in the same amount of time but God still has 2-3 weeks to continue to speak to me about the message.

New Series: ONE

We start a new series this weekend that is going to be different but good for us.  We’ll be looking at some of the “ONE’s” in the Bible and the power of discovering the truth behind each ‘ONE’.  This series will cover some of the basic but big beliefs about Christianity.  I’m also excited because the last message in this series will be “ONE NATION … UNDER GOD” and we’ll talk about Christianity and America.  I’m a ‘God & country’ kind of guy so those two topics together get me PUMPED UP!!!

Also, we’ve added a new feature to our web site called the “e-VITE”.  Basically, it is an email invitation to a church service at Rock Bridge.  You can check it out here.  Invite ONE friend to join you and let’s expect something BIG each week of ONE!!

Can’t Wait for Sundays!!

I love Sundays!! I love praying, preparing, and planning during the week for Sundays!  But there is always the element of anticipation and expectation over exactly what God is going to do.

• Who is He going to touch, change, and save?
• How is God going to show up:  with a powerful song? In quiet conviction?  In loving comfort? In a moment of fellowship?  During a time of repentance?  Through a drama?  With words of encouragement?  God is sovereign and each week He shows up in ways that I could never have imagined!!  God is also faithful in that when people come together in Jesus’ Name and teach the Bible … HE WILL BE IN THE HOUSE!!
• What will He bring to my mouth that was totally unexpected and unplanned during my hours of research and preparation?  (I love it when He does that to me!!)

I believe this series (My Secrets) is one of our most powerful and personal series.  I’ve had numerous conversations with people about how the truths of God’s Word are being applied and they being set free and their hearts set squarely upon God.

We believe God has given us a very powerful way to close the service this Sunday that will vividly depict the clean slate and new life we have in Christ.  However, I know what I am imagining cannot compare to what God will actually do.  So while our Creative team and process has worked and prayed hard for this Sunday and every Sunday … we know it is only through God that lives are changed, freedom is won, and souls are saved.   Right now, would you …

• EXPECT GOD TO DO SOMETHING AWESOME THIS SUNDAY AND EVERY SUNDAY AT RBCC!!
• PRAY HARD FOR THE SERVICE EACH WEEK
• SHOW UP WITH ANTICIPATION IN YOUR HEART FOR WHAT GOD WANTS TO DO IN YOU!!
• WHO DO YOU KNOW THAT NEEDS JESUS? A CHURCH HOME? A FRESH START? — INVITE THEM!!
• DON’T MISS WEEKLY WORSHIP … YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT GOD IS GOING TO DO!!

Saturday Night Live

Well, it’s Saturday night and I’m excited to be preaching again tomorrow at RBCC!! We’ll be sharing something pretty cool that we’re going to be doing for Vision Sunday (aka ‘get as many people as you can’ day) on March 18th.

Here’s some things rolling around in my head and heart:

EXPECTATION
Let’s expect God to do something awesome each week in and through the church. Church should be the most exciting and irrestible thing we do BECAUSE God is fully in it and fully committed to it!
–Expect people to come to know Christ.
–Expect record crowds.
–Expect to encounter God.
–Expect God to become more personal.
–Expect to fall more in love with Jesus.

CHRIST-CENTERED
We do a lot of cool things, a lot of creative things … but it is all for naught if Christ is not at the center. The Bible says that if we lift Christ up, God will draw men to Himself.
I pray every Saturday night that people encounter the risen Christ and not the sinful Matt Evans.

THE GOSPEL & GOD’S WORD
The Gospel is simply the ‘good news’ that Christ died to pay a debt of sin we could never pay and through His death & resurrection, He offers us eternal life. God’s Word tells the story of the Gospel and then explains its meaning. Those two things contain power beyond me to change lives and eternities.
So many Saturday night’s I believe the message for Sunday is terrible and a total bomb; however, I have come to realize that the power is in the message (the Gospel and the Word) not in the messenger. As a result teaching is more about preparing myself than preparing a message.

John 3:30

Message Preparation (Part 7)

Here’s my final thoughts on giving the message and these deal with the actual delivery.

PRE-GAME
–I try to spend an hour plus in prayer before coming over to the service. I hang out my office or ‘Green’ Room since we met in a theatre.
–I come over about 30 minutes before the service kicks off for a quick mic check and then I spend time greeting and welcoming people to Rock Bridge.

WORSHIP
–Time in worship really helps me get open to God and get past myself.
–Also, let me just add that our Band and Praise Team have been taking things to the next level in ’07!!

GO TIME
What can I say except that I love to preach. I never went to seminary so I sort of taught myself by listening to Rick Warren, Charles Stanley, Andy Stanley and others … now I have learned the most important thing: just BE MYSELF.
Here’s what that means for me:

1) ENTHUSIASM
–I am passionate about this stuff and by this time I better be passionate about the topic. That needs to be transparent.

2) HOLY SPIRIT
–He lives in me and I need to let Him out of me!! This is has been my biggest learning curve as I have transitioned from heavy notes and a ‘pulpit’ of sorts to now using only a rough outline and a ‘bistro’ table. I now say things I had not planned to say but are things God prompts me to say. This is when things are really clicking.

3) LEAVE IT ALL ON THE ‘STAGE’
–My old football coach used to say “Leave everything on the field.” Then it meant give it 110% and don’t hold back.
–Now it means much the same BUT with the addition of don’t rehash the message afterwards 763 times, don’t bug my wife with the pesty, “How was it?” question, don’t doubt God’s ability to use my inability, don’t think, “It’s over. No one will show up here next week.”
–I use to do those things every week. Now, I’m down to every other week! Seriously, when it is all said and done, let it all be said and done and leave the outcome with God … it all starts with Him and it all goes back to Him!

Message Preparation (Part 6)

Here’s the weekly routine for me. I have just changed to this because I was only preparing over the course of 1 1/2 days and I needed more time to ponder the Scriptures and let things marinate in my head and heart.

WEEKLY ROUTINE FOR MESSAGE PREPARATION
Tuesday mornings: study
Tuesday afternoon: creative team meeting
All day Wednesday: study
Thursday morning: finishing touches on the message
Friday morning: go over service w/worship pastor + prayer
Saturday night: review message and prayer
All week: marinate and ponder God’s truths

The Friday-Saturday ‘Bout w/Doubt:–For some reason, between Friday and Saturday night (sometimes it goes into Sunday morning) I have serious doubts about the message. I used to wonder why or what is going on. I am slowly learning that this forces me to depend on God, helps me realize this is God’s endeavor not mine, reminds me that I am merely a broken vessel that God has chosen to use (for which I am so grateful), AND … the biggest thing is does it is pushes me to do something that Mark Driscoll emphasizes: “Go with the Ghost”
Driscoll concentrates heavily on being filled with the Holy Spirit and then preaching “as God leads and trust[ing] that God will direct my words, and He always does.”
–I am really trying to learn how to depend on God more in my preaching. A John 3:30 kind of work going on in my life.
–For example, last week I had serious sermon block. I am almost called our Associate Pastor, Aaron Gable to fill-in. (Aaron has a back-up sermon ready to preach in case I get sick or something.) I felt sermon block classified as ‘something’ and it was making me ‘sick’. When I got up to preach I just let go … at the end I believe we had an awesome service. In fact after the 9:00 am service I was worried that I would not be able to preach the same message because it was so God, so not in my outline, and so not what I envisioned. But God is faithful … duh? Why do I EVER doubt that??????????

John 3:30

Message Preparation (Part 5)

Next up is structuring or outlining the message. This is the fun part where we think through transitions, illustrations, phrases, ‘sticky’ statements that help people remember, and takeways that people can apply to their lives.

Here’s my general structure for most messages:

INTRODUCTION–introduce the theme, issue, tension, or life issue we are addressing.
To do that we use drama, personal stories, maybe a compelling question, etc.

TEXT
From the introduction we usually transition to the Bible text to uncover what God says about our topic, how God’s truth can help us resolve the tension, and how we can move our lives closer in line with God’s truth (doers not just hearers).

I generally use just one main passage and go through it verse by verse stopping to explain, apply, or further amplify what the text is saying.

APPLICATION
Application is generally throughout the message but here is where we really try to focus people to thinking what they can do in light of what they heard. This is the “Now what?” part of the message. Applications can take several shapes:
–A few bullet points
–An time to ‘imagine’ what if we really lived this truth in our homes, church, community, at work, in friendships, etc.
–A penetrating question or set of questions that forces people to get off the fence and move one way or the other

Message Preparation (Part 4)

After I get what I like to call the ‘Ah Ha moment’ from the Scripture, then I work to structure the message clearly and creatively with conviction. Let me go over these four things:

AH HA MOMENT
This is when my heart starts racing, my blood starts pumping, and I run down the halls. The staff knows when this moment arrives because I usually run out of my office and disrupt and disturb whatever it was they were doing.
Usually, the AH HA is a simple yet memorable or profound statement that becomes the central idea of the message or the ‘one big thing’.

…now on to structuring the message.
I find that once the ‘AH HA’ occurs, then everything else usually falls quickly into place. Why? because everything will either lead to or come from the ‘AH HA’.

CLEARLY
I think it is better to be clear than creative. In fact, sometimes the creative can actually detract or distract from the main idea of the message. Some questions for clarity:
–How does this resonate after people leave church? Can they discuss this over lunch or at a small group? Is it understandable and obvious what this truth means to them and their lives?

CREATIVELY
Once the message information and structure is clear then use creativity to make it either more memorable or more understandable.
For example, we did a message on connecting to each other through church and specifically, in small groups. The ‘AH HA’ was you need to be connect to the team/family to be effective. We illustrated this by using a mannequin (I had to look that word up) and I would take its arm off throughout the message to talk about being ‘disconnected’ vs. ‘connected’.

WITH CONVICTION
I have learned this the hard way and forget this several times a day … but …
NO ONE PREACHES BETTER THAN THEY PRAY.
I sometimes get wrapped in the preparation and forget where the true power comes from … God!
Teaching/preaching with conviction also means I have to be personnally passionate about the topic or idea. I am usually passionate because of the difficult process God takes me through to arrive at the ‘ah ha’ moment … but when I see the Word really come alive … I get pumped.
Conviction also comes when I have experienced the truth personally in my own life. Sometimes this means I have to repent of something before I can preach it with integrity. Sometimes I am my own congregation, but when I change or learn something new or am challenged … boy, that makes me passionate and able to speak with conviction.
Conviction also comes from the many wonderful people who pray for me! Thank you!

Message Preparation (Part 3)

When I first started teaching regularly on Sundays, I worried about finding enough material, what to talk about, etc. Then I heard a statement that basically said, “You cannot outpreach the Bible.” Since that time I made a major decision that I would bank everything on the truths, power, and authority of God’s Word. I almost always preach through a Bible passage or story and the one big thing that I want people to go home with is derived from that passage.

So here is a rough approach I use to get into the Bible when preparing a message:

1) What is overall theme or topic of the series and message? (see previous post)
2) Find an appropriate passage that addresses that theme or topic.

Once the passage is located, here’s what I do:

1) Pray
2) Read the text in prayer
3) Record any initial observations from the text
4) Find the LIFE (God’s Word is living and active) in the text:
–What are the key words, phrases, or ideas?
–Is there anything shocking or surprising about the text?
–Is there a mythbuster?
–How does it us point to Christ?
–Are there any repetitive words or phrases? Why are they repeated?
–Is there an obvious outline, flow, or structure of the text?
–Is there an obvious application?
–How does the way people normally live stack up against the text?
–How can vision be cast from this text for our lives, community, or church?
5) Use other sources to see the topic or text from other perspectives.
–This includes listening to other speakers, reading books, commentaries, etc.

Again, let me say that this is where preparation is both fun and frustrating. It is fun to really engage God’s Word but it is frustrating to labor through to try and discover the central idea or one big thing or how to help people understand and apply these truths.

During this phase of preparation, I frequently have that ’1000 yard stare’, get up and do push-ups, abruptly resign as pastor (just kiddin’), get tempted to ‘talk like a Sailor’, throw my King James (just kiddin’), walk around aimlessly, and really cry out to God in desperation … it is about this point that a breakthrough occurs and I see what and how God wants me to share His truth with His people in a timely and relevant way.

It is also at this point that I THANK GOD THAT I GET TO DO WHAT I GET TO DO!!