Lead Worship

Getting Things Done

Posted on June 29th, 2009 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: My Life.

Here is a Todo List that I found that I really like. I have adapted it using a little of the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. I also have changed a few other things as well. In fact, barely anything is actually mine.

Let me know if you like it.
To Do List

Instructions:

• Everyone has the same amount of time. The question is not how much time you have but what do you do with your time. Plan your time before the week begins not day by day.
• Each day has it’s own to do list. You only put things under the specific days when the thing has to be done that day. Also record anything under that day that took a considerable amount to time so that you know where your time went that day. Make sure that you accomplish things that are not urgent first if you can. Each day you will find yourself doing every-day tasks, short-term, and long-term planning. If you will put the short-term and long-term planning first, you will find that the urgent things will soon dissipate.
• Beside each day are colorful boxes. These are for you to check off when you have done these tasks. These are not to be done each day but to make sure you are prioritizing correctly throughout the week. Each block is an hour. Some days you might spend more time creating and other days you might spend more conversing with people. That is okay. Just make sure that you try to keep a balanced life.
• Under “Other Stuff that’s on Your Mind” write down any todo that needs to be done during the week but doesn’t fall under a specific date. When you have all your “Other Stuff” down, number them in order that you will accomplish them.
• The key to time management is actually in the short-term and long-term planning. If you put these as top priorities, you will find that the things that you are pushing on the time deadlines will soon start to disappear. Things that are neither important nor pushing for time, just don’t do.
• At the beginning of your day, before you check your email and facebook, start accomplishing the things that must be done for that day. Next start accomplishing things in order of the other stuff.

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Eastgate Color Scheme

Posted on June 24th, 2009 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Blogs.

Hey guys, let me know which color scheme you like the most

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Getting Stuff Done

Posted on June 23rd, 2009 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Technically Speaking.

Whether it’s stuff to do at the house or at work or everywhere else in between, it seems that we always run out of time. To help manage our time better, I found a todo list that really helps me. I have edited it just a little to meet my needs and I think that others might want a copy to.

Todo List

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Essential Church – Chapter 2: Looking For a Different Kind of Community

Posted on June 19th, 2009 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Essential Church.

“The ‘third place’ term was coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg. The concept of a third place involves a gathering place for people separate from home (the first place) and work (the second place). The third place is an anchor of the community, which facilitates relational interaction between people in the community. These informal meeting places have existed throughout history, but they have increased in importance the last decade. As the lines between home and work blur due to the increasing mobility of society and as people travel a greater distance from home to work, the thrid place has become an important gathering point for people wanting to break between the first and second place…

“Through our research we found that churches who are reaching the unchurched and dechurched understand this trend of creating community. Most of them offer a third place in their churches. While only one out of five churches with recent facitlity additions built a third-place facility, almost three-fourths of the formerly unchurched say they were attracted to a church with a third-place facility” (page 61-62).

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Essential Church – Chapter 1: My Faith Is Not My Parents’ Faith

Posted on June 18th, 2009 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Essential Church.

“We heard Joe talk at length about his parents, how they continued to love him and reach out to him during this time in his life. But their reason for going back to church was simply, ‘You need to get back in church.’

“This line of conviction and argumentation perhaps worked with older generations, but it does not resonate with the latest generation of young adults…

“Our research revealed what many pastors and church leaders already know anecdotally: the youngest generation doesn’t necessarily leave their faith; rather they leave their church” (page 27).

“80 percent of high school students do not plan to leave their church once they graduate” (page 28).

“To be blunt, God has converted our children, but we have failed to disciple them. Our children grow up in the church and experience all the programs and fellowship, but they do not engage the truths of Scripture” (page 30).

“But the church is not capturing and engaging these students’ spiritual interests. In fact, the church is doing the opposite. We’re losing them because the church is uninteresting to them.
“The major source of disillusionment within the church stems not from the expected differences of worship style wars, time slots, day of worship, or even geographic location of the church. While some do leave for these oft-stated reasons, the major loss originates from the lack of discipleship within our churches” (page 32).

“Church is not a chore, no should it be viewed as such. Lost somewhere is the idea that we are to grow discipled warriors fro God. Church can be fun; fellowship is many times viewed as one of the essential purposes of the church. But our churches should produce and grow disciplined, God-glorifying people, not callow Christians” (page 35).

“At issue in many churches are the vast number of programs and ’spots to fill.’ Our youth see adults in the church begrudgingly serving in areas for which they have little passion. They see their parents and others getting sucked into the vacuum of church service. But if we show these young adults that serving the church is more about using their God-given gifts and less about filling a spot in a program, they are less likely to want to break from church” (page 36).

“Churches should not attempt to ’sell’ this generation on church. They want their church to be authentic and real. They want the truth, even if they disagree with it. They want to know where you stand. They may not like it at first, but they will respect you…Fanciness may attract a crowd for a while, but assimilation will never occur unless a church is truly authentic, transparent, and real…And we should be training and discipling them, placing them in pertinent leadership roles and holding them accountable. When the bar is set high and excellence is demanded, the church will then attract and keep those who truly seek to assimilate and make a difference in ministry” (page 39).

“The signs of a more intense drought are occurring in our great country. It has been going for some time; it is a drought in our churches. This drought stretches from coast to coast. With many people-particularly young adults-leaving the church every week, the church needs to get back to the basics.
“We must pray for a pouring out of the Holy Spirit. Our society needs water, but it has abandoned the fountain of living water and dug cisterns for itself-a double evil because the Lord is abandoned and people resort to their own pursuits (see Jer. 2:13). The powers of darkness are bringing the heat and causing extreme spiritual droughts” ( page 43-44).

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Essential Church – Introduction

Posted on June 18th, 2009 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Essential Church.

“More than two-thirds of young churchgoing adults in America drop out of church between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two!”

Top Ten reasons Church Dropouts Steopped Attending Church

1. *Simply wanted a break from church
2. Church members seemed judgmental or hypocritical
3. *Moved to college and stopped attending church
4. *Work responsibilities prevented me from attending
5. *Moved too far away from the church to continue attending
6. *Became too busy though still wanted to attend
7. *Didn’t feel connected to the people in my church
8. Disagreed with the church’s stance on political or social issues
9. *Chose to spend more time with friends outside the church
10. *Was only going to church to please others

*Didn’t find church attendance to be essential

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Stemming the Tide

“Imagine a scenario where every church in America more than doubled its worship attendance in one week. And imagin that the increase was sustained with an influx of regenerate, dedicated members.

“We estimate that, on a given Sunday, about 85 million people in America attend a Protestant church. What would the spritual impact on our nation look like if that number suddenly increased to more than 150 million?

“That is the exciting scenario we would witness if our churches could stem the tide of exodus of young adults from our churches. And though we are not so naive as to believe there is a formulaic approach toward this reality, we do believe that some biblical realities could curb this massive exodus” (page 5).

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“The essential church has four major components”

1. Simplify
2. The church moves its members to deepen their knowledge of God’s Word and His truths. These congregtions have resisted the temptation to “dumb down” bilbical teachings in an attenpt to draw a crowd or to avoid tough issues.
3. High expectations
4. Multiply members spritually

“Despite the growth of the nation, the SBC is baptizing no more people today than it did in 1950.

“Worse yet, the church is losing influence in cultutre. Local churches are having trouble relating to their local community and the younger generation. While some peg this irrelevance as the major underlying factor of declining churches, we believe that it is merely symptomatic of a much greater issue: the church is no longer essential to peole’s lives” (page 8).

“Charles Spurgeon, famed pastor of London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle in the late 1800’s, wrote the following in his book The Soul Winner

In the next place, we do not consider soul-winning to be accomplished by hurriedly inscribing more names upon our church-roll, in order to show a good increase at the end of the year. This is easily done, an there are brethren who use great pains, not to say arts, to effect it; but if it be regarded as the Alpha and Omega of a minister’s efforts, the result will be deplorable (page 10).

“Any traveler to Western Europe will marvel at two aspects of the local churches: how intricately and monstrously beautiful they are as well as how empty they are of parishioners” (page 11).

“Believers in the United States should not make the assumption that we are free and clear from this dilemma. In fact, we are just a little further behind on the road of irrelevancy” (page 11).

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Seven Sins of Dying Churches

Stagnation equates to dying. Your church may look the same week in and week out, but if you are not winning the next generation for Christ, then you are losing the battle.

1. Doctrine Dilution – Watering down Scripture is not the answer to reaching a younger generation for Christ. They do not want to be mollycoddled with tough doctrinal truths. Diluting the truth to cater to eighteen to twenty-two-year-olds may work for a time, but low-dose Christianity stings the church much worse in the long run.
2. Loss of Evangelistic Passion – Dying churches have little evangelistic passion
3. Failure to Be Relevant – Churches taht do not find ways to become relevant in their respective communites will eventually falter. Churches that keep their internal culture unchanged for fifty years while the world around them goes through continual periods of metamorphosis typically die with that old culture
4. Few Outwardly Focused Ministries – As crucial as Bible studies and fellowship are, dying churches gorge themselves on closed study groups and churchwide fellowship events while neglecting outreach in the community
5. Conflict over Personal Preferences – When the power of personal preference overcomes the calling of the Great Commission, major myopia spreads among the congregation. They do not see the imperative to win people for Christ due to the blurriness of their won selfishness.
6. The Priority of Comfort – Dying churches are comfortable with their ministries. But ‘The way we’ve always done it’ will not pass muster if the American church is to thrive.
7. Biblical Illiteracy – One of the major sins of a dying church is the neglect of theological teaching. If a church member does not understand the basics of Scripture, then they are hampered in their witness.

Simplify – The church develops a clear structure and process for making disciples.
Deepen – The church provides a strong biblical teaching and preaching.
Expect – The church has an attitude that communicates to its members that they must be committed to the local congregation.
Multiply – The church has an outward focus, drivng to reach people for Christ and starting new churches (page 16-21) .

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Soul Cravings

Posted on June 18th, 2009 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: My Life.

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Soul Cravings – Entry #10

Posted on June 18th, 2009 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Soul Cravings.

“I’m often accused of being irreligious, and I suppose it’s for this very reason. Whether it’s Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other ism, when a religion is created on the subtle premise that God withholds His love and you must submit to the system to earn that love, I consider it the worst of corruptions.

“But again these traps work only because of two things: we long for love, and we are convinced that all love is conditional.

“Ironically, this is where so many have a problem with Jesus. For centuries the church has been telling us if we want God to love us, we need to follow the rules. It’s been far more important to focus on the sin problem than the love problem. This is the only way the institution can maintain control over our lives. After all, if love is unconditional, what will keep them following our rules? Don’t we want people, first and foremost, to be good? If our goal is to get people to conform, you can accomplish that without love, but you can’t maintain a civilization without the rule of law.

“What governments have not always been able to do, religions have accomplished with amazing effectiveness. They keep people in line.

“What in the world would happen if people actually began discovering the actual message of Jesus Christ-that love is unconditional? What would happen if we began to realize that God was not, is fact, waiting for us to earn His love, but that He was passionately pursuing us with His love? What would happen if the world got out that Jesus was offering His love freely and without condition?”

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Soul Cravings – Entry #9

Posted on June 18th, 2009 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Soul Cravings.

“It’s just too hard to believe that if you come near to God, you will find yourself not drowning in condemnation, but swimming in compassion.

“Jesus called to all who were weary and who found their souls exhausted to come to Him and find rest. He is telling us that God will be for us our place called home.

“We run from God because we long to be loved and we have convinced ourselves that the One who is most loving could not and would not embrace us.

“We run from the One our souls crave.”

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Soul Cravings – Entry #8

Posted on June 18th, 2009 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Soul Cravings.

Our culture’s new wisdom is that sexual freedom is far healthier than any moral guidence. Why does it continue to surprise us that a girl who is sexually active by fourteen is emotionally devastated by fifteen?

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