When Jesus began his ministry, he started recruiting people who would be with him from the beginning (Acts 1:21-22). The people he recruited were a motley bunch of men. Fishermen, tax-collectors, doubters, and a thief were among the twelve who would be closest to him. That’s not counting the seventy two that he knew well enough to send out two by two as well (Luke 10). Jesus recruited people to be followers, but from the beginning it was clear that this was not his only intent. Jesus was going to train them to be leaders.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Busy Whiteboard
Ok, so I did not anticipate the amount of activity that would take place in December and January. Perhaps I should have. It was, after all, Christmas. Since my last post on December 5th, we have held 14 normal weekend services, 7 midweek services, a family Christmas program, Christmas Eve Candlelight service, and a New Years Eve youth overnight party. In addition to all this, we attempted to travel to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving (resulting in car repairs and replacement in December), actually travelled to Cincinnati in January (for Christmas with family), and spent a week in Anderson, IN to continue my Doctoral studies. Whew!
All that being said, the “whiteboard” has not stayed clean. I’ve been writing on it quite a bit with different individuals and teams. Work is progressing. New teams are starting to form. MBOs (ministry by objectives) are being created, and support systems are being developed and put into place. God is working in and through His people to begin empowering one million to walk together with God. God team! Praise God!!!
All that being said, the “whiteboard” has not stayed clean. I’ve been writing on it quite a bit with different individuals and teams. Work is progressing. New teams are starting to form. MBOs (ministry by objectives) are being created, and support systems are being developed and put into place. God is working in and through His people to begin empowering one million to walk together with God. God team! Praise God!!!
Saturday, December 5, 2015
The Twelve Teams of Life Bridge (Part 1)
I was just listening to my favorite version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” again to get me into the season. I think I enjoy it because I used to be in an acapella singing group many years ago with my dad. I also think I enjoy it because their version seems a bit ADHD, but really pulls a lot of fun references together into one Christmas song. In the end, it makes beautiful (and fun) music.
Priorities, Process and Progress
Long before opening day of Life Bridge Christian Church, we were prayed for by people over a ten year time span. They prayed for God’s timing. They prayed for God’s leadership. They prayed for God’s provision. God answered all of those prayers with a resounding, “Yes,” so that the timing was 2003, the original leaders were called from Ohio, Oklahoma, and Indiana, and the money was provided to begin services open to the public on September 28, 2003. Two hundred people attended on that day. God had faithfully provide all three (wisdom on timing, leadership, and financial resources) ever since.
Clean Whiteboard
I love whiteboards. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t love whiteboards like I love my children, love my wife, or love God. But still, I love whiteboards. There’s something about a whiteboard that communicates, “Let’s collaborate. Let’s imagine. Let’s plan.” Some of the people at Life Bridge are convinced that my last name, Kersker, is just the German word for whiteboard. (Actually, the German word for whiteboard is “Weißwandtafel.” I looked it up.)
Saturday, November 14, 2015
A Better Top
Traci has been working with different groups of people on a project. She took old CD’s and DVD’s we had left over at Life Bridge, painted them, added a marble and plastic cap to them, turning them into tops. They’re really cool. They spin much longer than any top I remember having as a child. They handle resistance better, the connection to the ground is more stable, and, best of all, we built them using materials we already had available to us. So, they spin and spin and spin and spin. These tops will be one of the many gifts we send overseas through Operation Christmas Child.
Over the past 12 years, now, we have been designing and creating a “better top” of sorts. I’ve long since recognized that the our ways of empowering and equipping people to walk together with God have very real limitations. We, the church in the West, have fallen into a style of being and doing church that makes it too easy to fall over and grind to a halt. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to leave this life and look back only to find that my life’s work fell over and ground to a halt so easily. No, we needed to design a better top. Interestingly enough, we don’t need to build a better top. We simply need to build the top using the Original Builder’s design.
For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person's work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved--even though only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Corinthians 3:11-15 NIV)
This Sunday (November 15, 2015), I will have the privilege of sharing a vision for Life Bridge Christian Church as it moves forward. The vision may sound similar to those you have heard before but, for those of you who have been paying attention, you will notice a real difference: It’s time to make the tops.
I hope you can join us this week. It will be exciting to see where God takes us from here. Services are at 9am and 11am Central Time here at our local building. Should you be away at that time, you can watch one of the services Live (well, with a 40 second delay) at http://lifebridgealive.com/EncounterGod/Online. Should you miss it, you will be able to watch the service this week at the same link. I hope to see you there.
Friday, October 23, 2015
Chili, Papers, and Plans
I’m watching Traci mix up a batch of Cincinnati-style chili. (It’s her own
homemade recipe.) This is kind of a pattern in our household. We make a batch
of something kind of big and then eat off of it throughout the week. This week,
it’s Cincinnati-style chili. Mmmmmmmm. I love it.
I consider this batch of chili to be kind of a celebration for me this week. I had a paper due for my evangelism class and I can’t begin to talk about the number of roadblocks that tried to get in the way of writing this paper. I’ve never worked so hard to get a paper written, but it is done. So, we celebrate!
I think this paper was difficult to write for two reasons. It didn’t have anything to do with the length requirement (25-30 pages). It had to do with the process. The first part of the paper was spent analyzing our culture: Porter County, Valparaiso, and Life Bridge Christian Church. (How would you like to try to put into words what we do at Life Bridge?) The analysis phase was tough because it took me on the roller coaster ride of the past twelve years. Every up and down was relived in my mind as I was watching videos, looking at statistics, and remembering relationships. Some of the things that we did worked great. Others were an abysmal failure. Needless to say, I needed my own bad-box class to get through the process.
It was also difficult because of the requirement for the second half of the paper. I was asked to write my theological and philosophical framework for moving forward. Then, I was asked to detail our strategy: what is the plan moving forward. Beside the normal, “If you want God to laugh, tell Him your plans,” the strategic planning phase took a lot of reading Scripture and prayer. This phase was tough because of the analysis done in the first phase and as well as where God has been leading me for the second.
By the time I completed the first phase, our mistakes…my mistakes…were quite obvious. I could easily see where I had missed the mark and not followed God’s lead. I could see other places, though, where we had been faithful to God’s leading even though the storms were intense and the spiritual battles fierce. The numbers confirmed what God promised in His Word and through His Spirit. God was faithful. When the dust settled, I could clearly see God’s faithfulness through it all. Looking back, I learned one principle loud and clear: Follow God no matter what.
I needed to learn this principle because of the planning portion of my paper. I could get past the mistakes of the past by thinking of Thomas Edison. As the story goes, he was fired from his first two jobs for being too stupid and unproductive. His first 1,000 attempts at creating the light bulb failed. Yet, he made it through. I’ve made mistakes in the past, but they were all in an attempt to learn how to create a “light bulb” of sorts.
Looking forward, though, I needed to remind myself of Fredrick W. Smith, founder of Federal Express. As his story goes, he wrote a paper for Yale University laying out the plans for FedEx, citing the changing times and difficulties faced in the industry. His professor gave him an average grade. The rest, as they say, is history.
I know that my approach to church, discipleship, evangelism, and empowering people is unique. I know that the places I am pointing us do not match the models of other churches, teaching ministries, or evangelists of the recent past. The vision I am sharing with us, however, is exactly where God wants us to go. It’s Biblical. I have peace from His Spirit whenever I pray about it, even in the details. It matches our experiences from the past twelve years. I know it will work.
I know that our part of God’s plan will not be for everybody. It will, however, serve a lot of people. It will serve them by serving one person at a time. Who knows? Maybe it will be like Cincinnati-style chili. It won’t be for everybody, but the ones who like it will absolutely love it. However it looks over time, we can be sure of one thing: it will glorify God and empower people. I’m ready to go make some chili. How about you?
I consider this batch of chili to be kind of a celebration for me this week. I had a paper due for my evangelism class and I can’t begin to talk about the number of roadblocks that tried to get in the way of writing this paper. I’ve never worked so hard to get a paper written, but it is done. So, we celebrate!
I think this paper was difficult to write for two reasons. It didn’t have anything to do with the length requirement (25-30 pages). It had to do with the process. The first part of the paper was spent analyzing our culture: Porter County, Valparaiso, and Life Bridge Christian Church. (How would you like to try to put into words what we do at Life Bridge?) The analysis phase was tough because it took me on the roller coaster ride of the past twelve years. Every up and down was relived in my mind as I was watching videos, looking at statistics, and remembering relationships. Some of the things that we did worked great. Others were an abysmal failure. Needless to say, I needed my own bad-box class to get through the process.
It was also difficult because of the requirement for the second half of the paper. I was asked to write my theological and philosophical framework for moving forward. Then, I was asked to detail our strategy: what is the plan moving forward. Beside the normal, “If you want God to laugh, tell Him your plans,” the strategic planning phase took a lot of reading Scripture and prayer. This phase was tough because of the analysis done in the first phase and as well as where God has been leading me for the second.
By the time I completed the first phase, our mistakes…my mistakes…were quite obvious. I could easily see where I had missed the mark and not followed God’s lead. I could see other places, though, where we had been faithful to God’s leading even though the storms were intense and the spiritual battles fierce. The numbers confirmed what God promised in His Word and through His Spirit. God was faithful. When the dust settled, I could clearly see God’s faithfulness through it all. Looking back, I learned one principle loud and clear: Follow God no matter what.
I needed to learn this principle because of the planning portion of my paper. I could get past the mistakes of the past by thinking of Thomas Edison. As the story goes, he was fired from his first two jobs for being too stupid and unproductive. His first 1,000 attempts at creating the light bulb failed. Yet, he made it through. I’ve made mistakes in the past, but they were all in an attempt to learn how to create a “light bulb” of sorts.
Looking forward, though, I needed to remind myself of Fredrick W. Smith, founder of Federal Express. As his story goes, he wrote a paper for Yale University laying out the plans for FedEx, citing the changing times and difficulties faced in the industry. His professor gave him an average grade. The rest, as they say, is history.
I know that my approach to church, discipleship, evangelism, and empowering people is unique. I know that the places I am pointing us do not match the models of other churches, teaching ministries, or evangelists of the recent past. The vision I am sharing with us, however, is exactly where God wants us to go. It’s Biblical. I have peace from His Spirit whenever I pray about it, even in the details. It matches our experiences from the past twelve years. I know it will work.
I know that our part of God’s plan will not be for everybody. It will, however, serve a lot of people. It will serve them by serving one person at a time. Who knows? Maybe it will be like Cincinnati-style chili. It won’t be for everybody, but the ones who like it will absolutely love it. However it looks over time, we can be sure of one thing: it will glorify God and empower people. I’m ready to go make some chili. How about you?
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