Road Trip!

I'm pretty excited.
My folks are visiting for the Labor Day weekend, and I'm getting ready to head to the Hillsong United Conference.
Actually me, Robin, and 12 other folks from Connections.

But really, it's just about the people.
If an experience like Hillsong isn't shared with others, for me, there's no point.
The speakers might have the best material in the world, but if I can't talk about with others, and apply it in our church, it just ends up being an exercise in frustration.

So I'm grateful for my parents watching the kids.
I'm excited to go have an awesome time with our worship team.
I'm thrilled to come back to a visit with my folks, a great Sunday service, and day of golf on Monday!

Time to pack up and head to Toronto!

Semesters

Everyone in our culture understands semesters.

• They dominate kids lives.
• They dictate families schedules.
• They direct the rhythm of our society.

Semesters certainly effect church life. We always talk about things slowing down in the summer (which still drives me crazy) and gearing up in the fall. SO instead of working across the grain of a rather benign cultural reality, we are going to use if to our advantage in our Connection Groups ministry.

So here's a preview of what coming this September...

The Semester Structure- three seasons to FOCUS, FORM, FILL and FACILITATE Groups.

• FOCUS is about prayerfully deciding how many groups we need, where they are located, evaluating our ministry.
• FORM is about asking creating our Catalog of Connection Groups- who, when and where
• FILL is about getting our people signed up for CG’s
• FACILITATE is about relationships and changed lives!

“Why the Semester Approach? I thought our groups meet from now until Jesus’ return?”

• The semester format is familiar to everyone in our culture.
• It gives a clear starting and stopping time, so people can sign up for the first time and not feel like it will last forever.
• It gives a built in rest for facilitators, hosts, and participants at busy times of the year.
• It allows people to take a break from a group and not feel like they are dropping out.
• It allows people to step back into a group very easily.
• It does not prevent people from a group re-registering for the same group. (This build continuity.)
• At the same time, this prevents stagnation by allowing groups to experience the blessing of “fresh faces” each semester.
• It allows groups to grow! If your group has someone who is ready to facilitate a group of their own, we make plans for them to FORM a new group starting the next semester.
• It allows us to have a few Focus groups. For example, CG ALPHA.

FAQ’s

• We’ll sign up as many as 18-20 per group, as some people will probably not show up or drop out.
• We will FILL groups with 12 people. It worked for Jesus, it will work for us.
• Groups of less than 12 will remain “open” for new participants, even past the FILL period.
• If all 20 people show up and commit to stick with the group, we can create a new group, as that would be one very motivated group of people showing tremendous initiative!
• We will have CG’s spread throughout the city and will list them by location and time in the catalog (example: North Central, Tuesdays at 7:30pm)
• Each CG will have a Facilitator, a FIT (Facilitator In Training) and a Host who will have attended the CG training session.
• Hosts will actually host the group at their house, or, if meeting the leaders house, will come early to help prepare.
• Groups will meet for 1.5 hours if meeting weekly.
• Groups should plan for 2 hours if meeting every other week.
• We STRONGLY encourage groups to meet weekly, as we will be using a “semester” format, which I’ll explain in a moment.
• The standard CG curriculum will be provided each week by the church and will be based off of the Sunday service (a more in depth rational for this approach will be explained during the training).
• We do hope to offer a very select few “FOCUS” groups. Currently the only one that is being formed is a “Connection Group- ALPHA.”

What our Goal?
100%
100% of the people who worship at Connections to be exposed to Connection Groups and to become a part of Connection Groups. This means that if we have 200 people who attend Connections in any given month, we need space for 200 to register.
That's our goal, and that's 100%

Monday Highlights

I think I'll make "Monday Highlights" a new feature, at least for now.
My head is always spinning after our Sunday worship service.
Maybe this will help me sort things out. So here goes...

• Yesterday's service was awesome! The band had two things come up, which meant they were shorthanded, but that didn't stop them from bringing it! I was singing "Rescue" all day long- much to the pain of my family.
• My man Mike stepped up and made the media portion happen! He even got the video going! I love people that rise to the occasion. But again, this illustrated for me why we need to have a media expert in place this fall. More on that when it's confirmed.
• Connections Groups are coming together like crazy. I'm am so excited I have to cross my legs! People are stepping up to Form groups. This September we'll be filling them. It's going to be amazing.

This is a HUGE PRAYER REQUEST...
For months now, literally, we've been pondering and praying about how to do a baptism service. I was literally drinking coffee with Robin the other morning, and the thought came to my head- why not in the fountain at the mall?

So I've approached the management at the mall, pitched my idea, and the guy didn't laugh. He didn't kick me out of his office. He didn't even say no. In fact, we talked about the logistics of such an event for a few minutes. Finally we had to leave it with this- he'll get back to me and let me know if we can do it!

And honestly, I think the guy wants to let us do this. He knew he couldn't say yes on the spot, as there is no precedent for this, ever, anywhere.

So pray like mad that we'll be given permission to hold a baptism service in the fountain at Masonville Mall Sunday September 21!

Finally, and this is what is always most awesome and most exciting for me-

• We had three re-commitments to Jesus
• Two people ask how to make a connection with God
• And our first official request for a baptism!

This is what it's all about!

Promise Broken

Series: Into the Wild
August 24, 2008

Today I want to tell you a story so big, that you’ll find it hard to believe. Today I want to tell you about a promise so amazing, so wonderful, so good, you’ll wonder, is it to too good to be true? Today I want to tell you about a God who gives us every reason, every proof, to believe he can and will keep his promise. Today I want you to be confronted with the greatest promise you’ve ever heard, so good you'll wonder is it too good to be true, and then challenge you to believe it.

Listen to the sermon at www.connectionschurch.ca or read the whole manuscript at cccsermons.blogspot.com

Music, Message and MEDIA

When we were getting ready to start our preview services last fall I had a slogan I started using to inspire, describe and invite people to worship.

"You'll hear great music, a great message and have a great cup of coffee- on the house!"

We are going to keep the great coffee. In fact, we are taking it up a notch and will be serving not just fair trade organic coffee, but will enter a program to actually support a coffee grower in a developing country (find out more at www.fireroastedcoffee.com and join us for a coffee tasting tonight, Wednesday August 20 at 6pm).

But this fall I'm unveiling my new motto....

"Inspiring Media, Music and Message."

It's taken me the past few months and a lot of failures and frustrations to recognize the importance of our Media elements. Now this is not to belittle the amazing work our volunteers have done. They got this thing going, and we started at a level superior to many organizations. But we just haven't taken to the level we can go.

• I've learned that putting on a p.p. presentation is easy, but going the next step is enormously difficult.
• I've learned that too many cooks spoil the recipe.
• I've learned that media has more power to reach people than I previously imagined.

Great media, on our great big screen, with our great big projector, is absolutely captivating.

So this is where we're going with the service. It means finding focused leadership to provide the unified consistency of excellent media elements. It means working on "branding" our entire church. It means branding each series. It means branding each and every service. It means working far enough ahead to find the right media elements. It means finding the talents and resources to make our own media elements wherever needed.

But ultimately, I believe, it means we'll make a stronger impression and more powerful impact on people. They will be drawn into a seamless and flawless experience. Barriers to the gospel will be removed. Lives will be changed.

To use a Trinitarian analogy- the media elements are like the Holy Spirit, the music is like Jesus, and the message like the Father. The Holy Spirit builds the church to the glory of Jesus Christ, and Jesus' mission was to glorify the Father. So in our service the Media will be like glue, or the spirit, that holds the whole service together. The music is like Jesus, drawing people to the Father. The message will always make clear the grace and love of our God.

Anyways, the point is this- Connections is going high tech, because high tech has the power to present the good news of Jesus in awesome ways!

May God Bless You With Discomfort - LifeChurch.tv : swerve

Craig Groeschel use this prayer to close his talk on "It" at the Summit.

Too good not to share...

It is from a Franciscan Benediction…

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

How is God blessing you?

Every Word Matters

EVERY WORD you say to someone matters.
We tend to remember this after it's too late.
Like James says, the tongue is a tiny thing, but the damage it can do is terrifying.

Because EVERY WORD MATTERS.
(If I had time I'd add some creative illustration where in I'd leave out a word, and the whole meaning of an idea would be changed.)

I know I VERY OFTEN make comments that are intended to break the ice, get a laugh, and start a conversation. Sometimes this is taken in completely the wrong way. We have all said things to people in our lives that we wish we could take back.
But you can't.
You can only apologize.

You must be very careful and use SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT!!

Prayerfully guard EVERY WORD you say- especially in a worship service.

Now somebody reading this is thinking that if someone leaves the church because of one word it's just a sign of their stubbornness.
Yes it is.
But I guarantee you that YOU are that stubborn too.

How many times have you been in a situation where you were just begging for an excuse to turn around, to walk out, to have your preconceived idea confirmed.

Guess what- people walk into church with the attitude, "Just give me an excuse to turn around and walk out."

Guess why- they are human.
And all of us humans approach most anything new or different in this way.

As a volunteer at a worship service you represent the Church.
And you represent God.
And Connections is to be represented as a gathering of people, all types of people, who want to find out about Jesus or who already love Him.

Don't give them any excuse to walk out saying I knew they didn't care, I knew they were no different, I knew they...

Never turn people off to church because they don't share your race, culture, or for that matter- your values, your tastes, you likes or dislikes, or anything else at all!

This is an AWESOME responsibility that none of us can take lightly.

It is truly a matter of life and death for people that do not know and call upon Jesus as their savior.

NWLRC Funfest

Join us this Saturday, August 16 for the
Northwest London Resource Centre Funfest
2-6pm behind Bantings High School

• Here the Connections Band rock!
• Volunteer to help out!
• Have FUN!

Hey, really, it's a good time and we can use some volunteers.
Email gsaylor@connectionschurch to sign up.

Connections Video News

The Law of the Jungle

Series: Into the Wild
August 10, 2008

...Folks, you want to know the real law of the jungle, the real point of God’s law? It’s not- if you do this, then I’m going to love you and be your God. The whole point of the law was God saying I love you, I am your God, and I want you to be able to love as I have loved you. Or to put it another way, the whole point of the law, the reason he gave it to us, is not so that we can earn his love, but to confirm his love. He doesn’t give is the law to earn his love, but to confirm his love. The law isn’t a step by step process of earning God’s love- it is confirmation of his love for us. And as confirmation of his love for us, it invites into relationship with Him, to receive and give the love he offers.

You see, God knows this- earning people’s love isn’t a system that really works well. God was smart enough to understand, long before we ever figured it out, that the best way to build a relationship is not to require someone to earn your love, but simply to give your love to them. God just knew that. He knew the best way to have us love him, was to give us his love. He knew the best way to build a relationship was to start with love.

We don’t get this yet. We keep working the system backwards- if you do certain things for me, I might love you back. The whole conditional love program. Try that with your wife here this morning, tell her, I’m going to give you a list of rules, about 10 in all. Come up with your own- if you do my laundry and cook my meals. Give up all your hobbies and take up mine. No more sweat pants, only mini skirts and heels…And if you follow these rules perfectly, I will then love you in return. I think that’s a really good system and how we should all approach our relationships. We’ll just all put out our list of 10 rules, and then whenever anybody wants to loves us or be loved by us, it will be very simple- all they have to do is follow our list of rules, and we’ll love them!

Listen to the sermon at our website, www.connectionschurch.ca or read the whole sermon here.

Olympics Junkies

I hate to admit it, but I can become a major Olympics addict. I try NOT to turn them on as I can quickly be sucked into the most obscure of events.
I was able to catch the last half of the opening ceremony.
I thought it would be the usual bizarre pomp and circumstance.

But what I saw amazed me- and everyone watching.
Here's the amazing story of the man behind it.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/07/asia/zhang.php

We throw the word "creative" around a lot, but this guy really is a creative genius.

Choose Life!

Sometimes my wife's blog is so good I just have to steal her entries!

Choose Life

As we drove to the stone quarry in St. Mary's for a day of swimming (to be followed by dinner at an all-you-can-eat ribs place) Karis boldly claimed, "This is going to be the BEST day of my summer".
It was a pretty awesome day. The swimming refreshed us. Justin was a little dare-devil doing cannon balls off the diving board. We biked the "Grand Trunk" trail. We explored the woods. And we swam some more.
But our mood mirrored the weather. It was bright sunny and warm one minute, and then a big black cloud would blow in and we'd be chilly and rained on. The weather we blame on - well, what do you blame the weather on? The mood - that was a matter of choice. You see, the quarry is VERY, VERY deep, and in order for kids to swim without a life jacket they need to pass an arduous swim test that includes 3 minutes of treading water. Karis was convinced that she could do it, but try as she might she only made it to 1 minute 43 seconds (very good effort!!). So on went the life jacket. And thus began the tears.

"Why would they MAKE me wear a life jacket? How could they be so mean? What would happen if I didn't obey the rules?" She just couldn't get over it. It was now the WORST day of her summer. All this while watching her brother (clad in the very same life jacket) sliding down the slide off the dock, jumping off the diving board, swimming around the rocks.
I was tempted to go in to lecture mode. "Choose to obey and choose life". "The rules are there to give you life." "The rules are there to ensure that you have the BEST day of summer." "The life jacket is not a constraint, it's LIFE". "If you attempt to go without the life jacket you could DIE." "Get over the issue of rules and get on with life." "Obey and Live".
It kind of reminded me of a verse in Deuteronomy after the giving of the law when God says "What I am commanding you is not too difficult for you ... See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction ... Now choose life, so that you and your children may live". The law doesn't kill us - it gives us life. The life jacket doesn't kill us it gives us life and opportunity for FUN. It's not difficult.
It was a good day despite the tears and a few rain drops. And maybe we learned a little lesson.
PS After biking 50 km back from the quarry to the restaurant George got his money out of the all-you-can-eat ribs. (The kids and I drove - he's the only one nutty enough to bike it back!)

Summit Day 1

Day one at the Summit- awesome.
I guess I shouldn't assume everyone knows what the Summit is.
It's actually "The Leadership Summit."
A conference done by Willowcreek focusing on the issues of leadership.
Specific enough to fit a nitch.
Broad enough to always cover a ton of material.

So here are just my random thoughts, reflections, etc...

Bill Hybels opening talk-
A great overview on the process of decision making and how vital it is to leadership at any capacity.
The axiom "This is Church" is what's it's all about.

Gary Haugen, director of the International Justice Mission-
Just heart breaking.
"If you want your leadership to matter, lead in the things that matter to Jesus."
"Leadership matters when it feels hopeless, scary and hard."

Bill George, Harvard prof and former CEO of Medtronic-
Align- Empower- Serve- Collaborate
"Leaders fail when they are not grounded. Get grounded by working at the ground level."

Wendy Kopp, founder of Teacher for America-
This was really challenging. She rocked.
It was like the leadership issue didn;t matter to her. Her mission is all that mattered- educational equality is the civil rights issue of our generation.
Give people the opportunity to make a difference, and they will.

John Burke, wrote one of my favorite books, No Perfect People Allowed-
He didn't really say anything new, but I like what he said.

Efrem Smith, pastor of The Sanctuary Covenant Church-
This guy brought it! Black man preaching to a bunch of suburban pastors- it was awesome.
Raised the bar to intentionally build the church to reflect the kingdom of God- multi cultural, class, and race.
And really, we don't have a choice. Our neighboring city of Toronto is the most diverse city in the world now. London isn't much different. The church needs to be the most integrated place on earth.

Now it's late, I haven't eaten yet, and want to rest, for tomorrow we do it all over again.

And a special shout out to the grandparents for watching our kids today and again tomorrow so both me and Robin can enjoy this.

Salmon and the Summit

Two totally unrelated things to report.

First, after a night kneeling at the porcelain altar due to some bad salmon several years ago, I recently got back into salmon again.
I should have remember my proverbs, namely, "As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his folly."
I should have stayed off the pink stuff. I was barfing until 5am last night. I'm still not 100%, but did eat a small dinner tonight. I think I can really say I'm off of salmon forever now.

Second, I'm glad I'm keeping my food down now because the Summit starts tomorrow.
Once again we have a crew from Connections going. We'll be hearing from some amazing speakers and enjoying the experience together.
Which is really what it's all about for me.
I hate reading a great book and having no one to talk to about it.
I never even watch movies by myself- what the point?
And when I think about it, there really are very few things I like to do by myself.
(That's not to say I don't like time alone- just that there are few things I like to do alone.)

The best part about going to a conference as a group is that the ideas can be shared and implemented together. This way I don;t waste my time, and frustration, trying to tell everyone "I heard this great idea," and "We really need to think about doing this..."
We just experience the Summit together, then work through all the great stuff.

You can check out the Summit website if you want to find out more.

Exodus

Series: Into the Wild
August 3, 2008



I was fascinated with the film "Into the Wild" as I am always intrigued by stories of people who pursue the ideal of the "Noble Savage."

I remember when I first heard about the “Noble Savage.” It was when Kevin Costner’s film, "Dances with Wolves" came out. Costner’s character, disillusioned with the humanity and society through witnessing the tragic events of the civil war, set out into the wild, into the frontier, to pioneer a new life. He joined a long history of people embracing the ideal of the Noble Savage.

The noble savage ideal is this...

Listen to the sermon at www.connectionschurch.ca or read the manuscript at cccsermons.blogspot.com

Into the Wild

Today is the first day of August.
Time to relax, go on holiday, maybe even cancel church...

WRONG!
This Sunday we are going "Into the Wild."
I can genuinely say that our team has made every series better than the previous one, and "Into the Wild" is no exception!
You won't want to miss what we have planned.

And your friends won't want to miss it either.
But the only way they are going to find their way to Connections is if you bring them.

Connections was and always will be a "grass roots" movement.
We started through your passion, we've grown through your passion, and we will continue to grow as you passionately promote what God is doing.

Join us on Sunday. Bring a friend. I can promise you an amazing morning.