In exactly 7 days, Relevant Church begins!  We had a great day yesterday with our dry run and am looking forward to next Saturday.  How do people plant churches with out dry runs?  I will never know.  We learned so much by simply practicing set up.  What a team we have been blessed with!  I am exhausted but striving to enjoy the moment.  5 years in the making and its here.  Nothing will rob by joy as I focus on the Dream Giver!

Tonight, one of our next steps was to challenge our church to participate in the 30 day sex challenge. I wanted to take a minute to explain what it is, what we are challenging you to do and how to participate in it.

The 30 day sex challenge was originally developed by Relevant Church in Tampa, FL. The idea is to create a challenge that would move married couples to higher levels of intimacy while at the same time challenging those that are not married (single, dating, engaged) to higher levels of purity and integrity.

So here is the challenge.

If you are married, to do the 30 day devotional guide with your spouse everyday and have sex everyday for the next 30 days.

If you are not married, to abstain from all things sexual for the next 30 days. Self love, porn, oral sex, sex, fill in the blank for the next 30 days and while you are doing that, go throught he devotional guide.

What do you do if you are engaged or dating? Do the singles guide because until you are actually married, you aren’t married. For more on the ways we make it okay to have sex outside of marriage, you can listen to tonight’s talk.

Now, how do you do this?

You can subscribe here to get it by email or you can put this blog into your google reader and every morning the singles and married guide for the day will be sent to your email inbox or reader (starting Monday, October 5th).

You can go to our website, download and print out the married guide and the singles guide.

You can also become a fan on our facebook page and it will appear in your newsfeed on your facebook page everyday.

The reality is that one of the main reasons many marriages end or are unhappy is because of their sexual relationship. Many of the problems that couples experience begin before they get married and often, before they even meet the person they are married to.

If you are a couple that has lost some ground in your sexual relationship, are on the edge of adultery, dealing with sexual addiction, need to spice up your relationship or want to raise the level of your sexual relationship, then this is definitely for you.

If you are not married and are struggling with not having sex, you are struggling to keep good boundaries, struggling with sexual addiction, then this is something you should definitely do. This will help to create good boundaries, while at the same time working through the issues that sex outside of marriage brings about.

Here is a great way to know you should do it, if you don’t want to. That is the clearest sign that you need to do this as a couple or individual.

Any questions about this, let us know.

Earlier I posted on the need of Christ today, as it was 2000 years ago.  I think it is true, but missed a topic I desperately want to touch.  I have struggled with this for weeks because I want to make sure the point is Christ and Christ alone.  I do feel the need to encourage believers to stand firm and make sure your belt of truth is firmly fastened about you (Thanks Pastor Ken for doing what God has called you to do!).  Any loosely tied truth is bound to fall short. So keep in mind as you read:  The only true authority is Christ.  I pray my words accurately show Him and His Character.

Onward to the topic.  For some reason, our religious society is being attacked by other Christians.  It’s not an outward negative ‘in the papers’ type of thing.  It’s more of a ‘oh look at us.  We don’t look Churchy so we must be better than old fashioned Churches.  They are outdated!’ In other words, “We have what the world has.”  Now these types of churches are often Bible believing, so what could the problem be?  The thought is they must entice people to Christ.  Their gimmicks (forgive me for the wording, but in reality they are games, dramas, sports tournaments, concerts, props, entertainment, etc.) are used to get people to church to hear 1 or 2 verses in a 10 minute sermon.  There is never alcohol or anything ‘bad’ at these events, so what might you ask is the problem.

Well, frankly, it’s based on the works of man, not Christ.  Those churches (they have several names, but I don’t want to point them out.  I want you to see a Church for what it truly is and choose for yourself a God fearing and Bible teaching Church rather than choosing a Church based on spiffy gimmicks.) feel that you must become society to reach society.  It’s based on 1 Cor 9:22 “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might win some.”

Now, I know what you are thinking.  “That’s in the Bible and it sounds right, what is wrong with a church that believes that?”  Well, there are a few things that this verse doesn’t address, but the whole chapter does.  I do wish those who quote a verse, use the entire scripture and in context.  Chapter 9 in 1 Corinthians addresses Paul being free.  What I just quoted is 1 of 27 verses describing Paul being free.  He confidently tells the Corinthians he no long is bound by the law (as a former high ranking Pharisee).  He can eat what he wants and bring a wife along (it is heavily debated on whether Paul was married.  Verse 5 discusses how the apostles brought wives along and that he CAN too, not necessarily that he would or did.)  But he did not use this right.  He also spoke of those who work in the temple, get their food from the temple, but he did not.  (See verse 12-18)  He speaks of preaching it freely, at no charge to those listening.  In this proclamation, Paul says because he does not charge for preaching in the temple, and ‘belongs to no man’ (verse 18), he can therefore go and preach where ever God sends him, no strings attached!

Now on to verses 19-23.  Paul is free (without financial obligation to preach where God takes him.)  He is bound by no custom that requires a payment, whether religious or monetary.  Now, people will not feel obligated to support him, but to come and listen without pressure to give.  This is why Paul is ‘free to be all things to all people’.  It’s not to go and do whatever he wants (he preaches God’s Word and only God’s Word.  No books by man, no juggling, no dramas to reenact the feel good of Christ.)  It is so he may share the gospel!  He doesn’t exercise his ‘right’ to be fed and paid in the cities, but shows that he is free from man laws (and religious ones too) to share the gospel!  He wanted others to know Christ without an obligation to follow because of payment or support (or even lack thereof in the poor.)  He wanted others to share in Christ what he had.

Now, that being said, another thing to note is Paul’s life.  He wrote the majority of New Testament books and if you look at them, nowhere else does it say he became like the world to save the world.  In fact, his writings speak of discipline and encouragement to other believers.  He spent 3 years in Ephesus training the church.  And in Acts 18:11 Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching believers.  This is not a man who used gimmicks to bring others to Christ.  He was a man who spent his life sharing God’s Word, then training new believers in righteousness.  He admonished others and made clear the things of Christ.   And he cautioned, in almost every book he wrote (God inspired!), that we are not to be swayed by the world.  We are to ‘fight the good fight’, ‘run the race’, ’stand firm’ in Christ, and to ‘make known the mysteries of the Gospel’.

Unfortunately, these churches that claim to be relevant are relevant to the world and not to the Word.  The gospel stops at John 3:16 and Romans 5:8.  There is no growth Paul desperately writes about to all the churches.  There is nothing beyond salvation.

There is more to attending Church than hearing a 10 minute sermon.  If you are not walking away from any Bible Study or Worship without a deeper understanding of who your Savior is and a desire to know and walk with Him even more, then I highly suggest you find another teacher.

I feel compelled to write this because if you are saved, the Christian life has just begun.  The riches in walking with Jesus are unparalleled to anything in this world.  And salvation is only the tip of the ice burg.

Now you may ask about sharing the gospel.  After all, aren’t these churches doing that?  Sharing the gospel does not always mean it will be to a crowd.  More often than not, it will be one on one and very personal. God will speak to you and will prompt you when, where and to whom you should share the gospel.  But in order to hear when He speaks, you must have a relationship with Him beyond the initial ‘hello!’  If you read Acts, Paul speaks of the Spirit prompting him to go to one place and away from others.  Yes, there will be times God tells you to close your mouth when you want to share!  I don’t understand why, but I trust He has a wonderful reason!

I pray that this blog helps you see Christ more and more.  Paul states my thoughts clearly in 1 Corinthians 9:16.  “Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach.  Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.”

The best way to start this post is to completely give God the glory for all He does. He is truly the God of all supply. With that being said, I wanted to give a quick update on the status of our “Get Connected” financial campaign. In my last post we told you about the 9 partners we have seen come along side us to help us toward our 40,000 dollar start-up goal.

I am so excited to tell you about how God has blessed us just this past week. We have been meeting with several people to ask them to become a partner of ours, and we have seen one person step up and donate 500 dollars! I told you God was good.

We have also been blessed with someone donating our business card printing, and another 2 people donating 300 dollars.

So far we have seen God move on the hearts of people to get us to 17 partners. These 17 partners have cought the vision of Relevant Church and know that God wants to connect with people in a deep way.

Please continue to pray for Relevant Church as we grow closer to our launch of January 10, 2010.

Blessings

Pastor Kalum

1. Churches get religion on marketing. With so many in our culture not attending church, a lot of churches are turning to marketing, but does it help? Is that the answer?
2. John Piper on Emotions and the aim of preaching.
3. Craig Groeschel on Suggestions on Today’s “Relevant” Church
4. Great reminder on all the work and people it takes to make Revolution happen. I’m so privileged to be a part of it. Thanks everyone.
5. Perry Noble on what people attack about leaders part 1, 2, 3 & 4. These are right on.
6. We need your input on some graphics for an upcoming series. Go here to vote.

In my last post I told you about our financial campaign we were beginning. We are calling this campaign the “Get Connected” campaign. The thought was to allow anyone to be a part of what is happening with Relevant Church.

This post is to give a quick update on the progress. We started this just this past Monday 5-12-09 and already we have 9 people committed for $100 each. God is awesome and He continues to blow me away with His provisions.

With that being said, we still need your help. You can be part of advancing the Kingdom of God from wherever you are. We have a start-up equipment budget of $40,000 that we need to meet. Our need is not just dollars, it is also equipment. If you have the ability to donate any equipment on our list, that would go to help us reach our goal.

Some of the major items we are in need of are:

1. A sound system
2. Enclosed 20′-24′ trailer
3. Computer and video projector
4. Printing (we are in need of getting biz card, brochures, fliers, banners, and signs)

Would you consider becoming a partner? Help Relevant Church connect people to Jesus.

Relevant Church is a new, exciting, and diverse community of people that are dedicated to seeing the people of Charlotte NC connected to Jesus. Charlotte, NC is one of the fastest growing cities on the East Coast. The growth numbers are staggering. Our commitment is to the people of this great city. Our desire and passion is to give ourselves fully to the mission of reaching the lost for Jesus. Our hearts are big, Our dreams are bigger, but we know that Our God is the biggest. With all of this being said, we still need YOUR help.

We have 2 goals that you could help us attain. We are calling this financial campaign “Get Connected.” We want you to have an opportunity to partner with us as we connect people to Jesus.

Our first goal is to raise $40,000 for all of the equipment we need to have to launch. You can download a copy of our equipment list to see what we need. Our prayer with this goal is to see 400 people donate $100 each to help us raise the funds. We know that starting a church in the middle of a recession isn’t the smartest thing to do by the world’s standards, but God is calling us to raise up to His standards and to trust in Him.

Our second goal is gather monthly partners. These partners would donate help support Relevant Church in maitaining our monthly budget. Our prayer is to raise $100,000 in yearly support for the first 2 years. Our goal is to be self supporting by year 3. You can download a copy of our first years budget here.

Financial donations are always a blessing, but there may be items on the equipment list that you, your business, or church could donate. Not only will the cash equivalent of these donations count toward our grand total of $40,000, but these donations are also tax deductible.

If you would like to know more about who Relevant Church is you may email us at or you can download a copy of our vision proposal here.

Remember, all of your financial donations are tax deductable. Please send your financial support to

1. North Point & Chic Fil-A
2. Sam Rainer on Faith and family
3. John Maxwell is blogging and on twitter
4. Tony Morgan on 14 ways to spend less so you can do more
5. Carlos Whitaker on Are we relevant enough?
6. Steven Furtick on Guitar hero ministry mentality (this is great)
7. Does Satan Exist?
8. Donald Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz as a movie (awesome)
9. Sam Rainer on The unchurched next door are receptive
10. Paul Ingram on It and what’s happening @ Revolution

Right now I am putting together a yearly sermon calendar and I have hit a creative block. I am looking for some creative ideas to help fuel the fire. I have the following series themes without the meat to go with them

1. Community (4 weeks)
2. Family series (4 weeks)

I would love to hear your feedback on what these two series could look like.

Thanks

I totally get it.   It’s utterly reasonable that people have complaints about the church. 

They say that the church, and the music that the churches play, and the messages that pastors preach are boring, predictable, and irrelevant.

Sometimes they are right.  These criticisms sometimes are deserved.

Other times they are half true.  People are smart enough to get it that they shouldn’t judge the whole experience of church based on one experience they had in eigth grade.  But they judge anyway, because it’s easier to judge than it is to have your whole life turned upside down by Jesus.

If you think the church is boring, safe, and irrelevant, I’m calling you out right now. 

The service today at Fellowship Church was unbelievable.   There’s a number of ways you can sample what happened today.  I’ll get to those in a minute.  If you give it a fair shot and you can honestly say that it’s just formulaic and doesn’t live in your world, and it doesn’t speak to you, cool.  I’ll leave you alone and stop calling you out.  In fact, if you give it a shot and it doesn’t work for you, I’d like you to leave a comment on this post.  So other people can know that I’m just blowing smoke.  (I’ll only censor or delete posts if they are obscene or slanderous by the legal definition.)

How can you get a little sample?

One thing I was struck by was one of the worship songs we sang today.  I posted the lyrics below.  Worship songs have a mostly deserved reputation for being smarmy, formulaic, mediocre, milquetoast, etc.

I’m trying to think of a musical comparison for the instrumentation on the song below.  Maybe 311?  Maybe Rob Thomas’s more rockin’ songs?  I don’t know.  But I hope that you’ll agree that the lyrics below defy the stereo type that Contemporary Christian worship music is nothing more than mediocre pop love songs where Jesus’ name is substituted for the singer’s girl friend name.  (Did anybody ever see the brilliant episode of South Park, where Cartman did exactly this: grabbed love songs, put Jesus name in there, and he became famous?  It was brilliant and dead-on.)

If you want something directly out of the service, click here.  You can listen to the sermon or watch a video replay of the entire service.  Marty’s sermon was equally challenging and relevant.  

His bottom line idea is that redemption isn’t only a thing that happens to our souls.  Our mission is not to just guarentee a ticket to heaven and then give up on the world.  Marty challenged us to get beyond condemning, copying, critiquing, or consuming what the world offers us.  Instead, he lead us into the idea that we ought to be redeeming.  This plays out on both a cultural and an environmental level.  Powerful stuff.

Maybe I’m all wrong.  But you don’t get bragging rights that the church is all irrelevant and boring unless you actually give it a try.  So what do you have to lose?

Surely children weren’t made for the streets
And fathers were not made to leave
Surely this isn’t how it should be
Let Your Kingdom come

Surely nations were not made for war
Or the broken meant to be ignored
Surely this just can’t be what You saw
Let Your Kingdom come
Here in my heart

I will live
To carry Your compassion
To love a world that’s broken
To be Your hands and feet
I will give
With the life that I’ve been given
And go beyond religion
To see the world be changed
By the power of Your name

Surely life wasn’t made to regret
And the lost were not made to forget
Surely faith without action is dead
Let Your Kingdom come
Lord break this heart

Your name
Is a shelter for the hurting
Jesus Your name
Is a refuge for the weak
Only Your name
Can redeem the undeserving
Jesus Your name
Holds everything I need

This week I am embarked on a 21 day Daniel Fast. The idea came from Pastor Stovall Weems and Celebration church. They do a fast at the beginning of every year and this year they opened up the fast to anyone in the country that wanted to participate. They are calling this time of prayer and fasting “Awake 21“.

I have never done anything like this before. Sure I have fasted a meal or even a few days, but not 21! So, I am going into this time with some very specific things that I would like God to do in me, for me, and for the new church that we are planting. We are literally 6 months away from our first preview service and things are getting exciting.

Over the next 3 weeks I am going to blog about what God is doing in the midst of this fast for me and for the church. Because I believe in giving Him the glory He deserves. I am in day 3 and I am reading through the book of John. There is some great stuff in this book,  so I will post some thoughts of what God is revealing on a later date.

I believe that 2009 will be a year of breakthrough. Even in the midst of a financial crisis, God can still move in mighty ways if we turn our hearts to Him and seek Him with all we have.

I challenge you to do an evaluation of this year and ask God to do great things. Maybe you need to look into this fast and participate with me.

I would love to hear if you are participating and what God is doing in and through you.

Blessings

Pastor Kalum

Chris Rosebrough’s end-of-year recap is here, at Extreme Theology. Here are the bullets:

• Marijuana ministers Green Earth Ministries. Article from A Little Leaven here.
• 30-day sex challenge: Paul Wirth/Relevant Church. Mahalo link here. Ed Young followed suit with a seven-day sex challenge. Ed Young’s own video is here, but it’s a private video; see also lots of comments there. 
• The Mountain Lake Church/Naked Church campaign. The article from A Little Leaven with video and link is here.
• The Oaks Fellowship for its television-themed sermon series. See here for a GodTube video for Real Life: Dancing With The Stars part 5.
• Gay Episcopal bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori.
• Exegesis of nursery rhymes (Wayne Dyer). Link with video at A Little Leaven.
• Pastor (Chad Smith) and family for sale on eBay (link).
• Christian rap, particularly Act Like a Christian/Lean like a Cholo (video).
• Obama Be They Name (video).
• Saddleback/Simply Youth High School Musical 3 Bible Study.
• Bill Scheer of Guts Church “I Am Not A Sinner” (link).
• Sonseed’s “Jesus Is A Friend Of Mine.” (video).
• Brian McLaren on the Bleeding Purple podcast, refuting the doctrine of Hell (audio with pictures). 
• The Voice Bible. 
• Rob Bell’s appearance at Seeds of Compassion; (A Little Leaven, Youth Ministries Alert).
• Peter Popoff’s Miracle Manna (video).
• Mike Murdock’s miracle seeds (link, video).
• Paula White & Larry Huck’s Seven Places Jesus Shed His Blood (video).
• Todd Bentley’s Florida Outpouring (head kick video).
• Patricia King’s sapphire glitter (link).
• Granger Community Church’s Reveal Study (link).
• The Shack (book website).
• John Crowder & Ben Dunn and their spiritual intoxication (video).
• Dutch Sheets interprets a dream (link).
• Rick Pino’s “You Spin Me Round” (video).
• Jane Dratz’s How To Share Your Faith Using Paris Hilton’s My New BFF (link).
• Rob Bell’s lectio divina (link, with parody sketch).
• Rick Warren, generally, but in particular his appearance on The Colbert Report.

missional, transformational, incarnational, emerging, postmodern, authentic, real, relevant, and/or innovative.  these days, words like these are used to describe a church — why?

what do they communicate?  these ‘concepts’ are rapidly becoming marketing promotion terms.  do a google search on ‘missional church’, ‘transformational church’, ‘relevant church’, etc…  these are the new catch-phrases to say we’re different or “better” than “traditional” churches.

as a follower of Christ, i’m guilty of this, too! i want to live the cool.  as the one responsible for generating content for eyeballs, i have used some of these words to describe itself (we like ‘transformation’ and ‘telling your story’ because it’s ‘real’).  but lately, i’m wondering about these semantic gimmicks.

here’s my concern — these terms seem to speak more to Christians than people who do not know Christ.  unfortunately, this encourages and exploits transfer growth.  i’m sure there are non-Christians attending these churches and drawn by these descriptors, and i’ve got no problem with that.  but i’m not so sure this would be more than churches that don’t describe themselves this way.

tangent thought — what percentage of people coming to the church (Christian and non-Christian) are young folks (20s-30s) that these phrases are appeal to?  is that also a marketing technique?  here’s another observation — within the past 12 years or so, in our city church A use to be where all the young adults went to church.  then, it became church B.  now, it’s church C.  the number of Christians hasn’t been growing, they’re just getting shifted around.

what seems to be the problem? — i think it’s a corporate savvy approach (here’s an example of the mindset).  church becomes a business as the church markets itself to its particular tarket segments. think about it — who goes to these “emerging”, “missional” or “relevant” churches?  what are their demographics (age, class, education and/or race)?

here’s another example, “multi-site” churches (the latest phenom to hit the church) resembles franchising and mergers & acquisitions (M & A).  because a church is “successful,” it is taking its brand and style of ministry to other locations.  what is that?! the presumption is that there is a certain “market” segment to which the church can appeal that is “universal.”

let’s face reality, following Christ and living as He did isn’t cool. the descriptions the Scriptures give to us about a church and believers isn’t about the labels, the music, the locations they meet in (how many “cool” churches meet in bars, pubs or coffee shops?), campuses of a mother church and churches in excess of 1000 people (why is it still about the numbers? –  the pastors of BIG churches are considered the leaders).

tangent — i respect rick mckinley at imago dei a great deal, i don’t think he wouldn’t make the cut of leadnet’s criteria because of age — what?!.  ID is doing GREAT stuff in Portland, but they’re not about being “cool” — from what i understand, they don’t like the labels or are concerned about marketing (YET, they do pursue excellence).

how does being missional, emergent, postmodern, relevant and real look when it comes to following Christ?  does “living by faith and not by sight” really suggest that i have to live without health insurance or retirement benefits?  (and NOT just because i’m unemployed)  would i even willing to consider these options?  how does “living by faith and not by sight” change my spending?  the activities i’ve got my kids involved with?  my aspirations to see them go to college?

looking outside of myself and my limited POV, how does “cool” speak to believers in Africa and Asia?  are these comforts and values they share?  does God have these values?

proof of concept — how does this paradigm of “cool” church sell in other parts of the world?  i’m guessing that it is limited to “American Christianity.”  if it is, that should be something to be concerned about because it suggests an ethnocentric or cultural dynamic of doing church rather than a universal attribute.

how about the persecuted church?!  how did they come to Christ?  i’m pretty sure it wasn’t because He is cool because the hardship they’re willing to endure for faith can’t be as temporal as some of my pursuits.

maybe i should be inviting people to a church for fools — …but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness… (1Co 1:23)  yep, i’m sure that will sell…

There’s a lot out there about the “new evangelical left,” the “emerging church,” and new missional communities that are seeking to embody the gospel in new ways and live out the mission of Jesus in the world. I’m painting in hugely broad strokes, but many of these churches share in common a skepticism / critique of church as it has been practiced and especially of the political activism of the religious right. It is an easy to blog surf and find some church, group, preacher, or random know-it-all with a laptop (guilty!!) spouting off about how the church has ceased to be relevant, how abortion and gay marriage are important but not really, how the church needs to apologize for so many things, and on and on. There is a good deal out there about how the church needs to deal with issues of poverty, social justice, and oppression and complaint that the church hasn’t done enough. And again there is usually a call for the church to apologize.

Theologically speaking, there is ample room for the emerging dialogue to take place under the umbrella of orthodox evangelicalism, defined broadly as belief that: 1) the Bible is true, and authoritative and we ought to follow it, 2) Jesus is the only Son of God and Savior, 3) return of Christ in judgment, 4) umm something else that I’m probably forgetting. The current movement though is often self described as being “prophetic” because of the ways that the prophets of the Old Testament and Jesus himself spoke about the poor and the marginalized. They see themselves as standing in that stream seeking to “be the church” in a prophetic kind of way rather than just “proclaiming” the gospel in a way that is disconnected from the day to day lives of the average person.

Socially speaking the movement seems to be dominated by White middle class, college educated people who wear black rimmed glasses and use Macs instead of PC’s. They tend to hang out in coffee shops and have churches with one or two word names like “Quest” or “Missio Dei” that obscure more than they reveal. They care about multiethnicity and try to actively pursue it. They have “creative class” jobs and live in gentrifying neighborhoods that have local food markets. They know what arugula is.

In other words, they fit neatly the typical demographic of liberal Democrats except for their pesky clinging to evangelical religion. But honestly, much of what is discussed in the blogosphere and bandied about in circles of these new evangelicals is hardly distinguishable from the Democratic Party platform. Without intending to, their prophetic voice on issues like abortion is suspiciously reminiscent of the bumper sticker, “Against abortion? Don’t have one!” Of course, it much more nuanced than I am portraying it, but there is a distinctive unwillingness to be notably and publicly FOR anything typically associated with recent evangelical politics and a concomitant willingness to be AGAINST anything championed by the Republican Party.

How prophetic though is it to align oneself with the prevailing currents of social and political thought? Has the Christian right spoken only a “negative and condemning message,” and if even they have, isn’t that also in the prophetic tradition? John the Baptist was not exactly sitting down for a conversation with those he preached repentance to, and Jeremiah would likely have been treated for clinical depression based on his frequent weeping and lament over the sinful state of his nation. Does being a faithful follower of Jesus mean that you support the notion of Universal Health Care Coverage?

Happy December to all of you. Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is around the corner. It is hard to believe that the year is about up.

I wanted to give you all an update of what we are working on for the month of December so you can pray.

We have put together a list of families that we are going to invite to a home meeting this month to share our vision and heart for the church. We are going to take some time to fellowship and have some fun as well.

We would like you all to begin to pray that God will start working on the hearts of those families and others that we may not know yet. We are going to ask for a committal as to what their involvement might be.

Our other major request this month is to nail down a meeting place. We have put a decision date as January 1st on where we are going to meet. We have looked at several schools and we are determining which one is the right place. Please pray for God’s discernment.

Thanks for all of your prayers.

Pastor Kalum
Relevant Church

Just found a great new resource that I wanted to share with the blogging world. If you are familiar with Portable Church Industries (PCI) or Church on Wheels (COW) then you will like this one.

PCI has formed a sister company specializing in a single box solution. If you know what you want for your new church and you do not need a consultation or training, then Church in a Box is the right solution. I just got off of the phone with Adam and he was awesome. They are able to give you the things that you need at a great price.

Check them out.

The passage of Scripture in John 10:22-36 opened my eyes to a fault of mine. The Jews were asking Jesus to answer a simple question; “are you the Christ (Messiah)”? The problem with this question lies in Jesus answer; “I did tell you, but you did not believe”.

You see the problem did not originate with Jesus telling them the answer, it lied with the Jews not believing the answer they were given.

How often do we ask God for an answer to a prayer or question that He has already answered? I often want God to answer me or show me in the way I deem fit, but many times the answers don’t come that way. So instead of praying and asking for the answers we may need to pray for clarity. Are you searching for an answer to something? Maybe God has answered and the way He spoke was not the way you were seeking for the answer.

Food for thought.

I have started a new group focused on prayer for our new church plant, Relevant Church. My goal is to get 1000 people praying for us on a continual basis. I am asking that if you are on facebook and you would like to commit to pray for us, please join the group. This group is not just to see how many people I can get to sign up, but rather a group of prayerful people that are willing to commit to pray for God’s will to be done.

Here is the link to the facebook group.

This weekend my wife and I attended a planting conference at Liberty University. This conference was sponsored by the NEXT Initiative. This 2 day seminar was an incredible time. We learned about the PD model and how we can “launch large”. Not only that there were tools that were discussed that were spot on to where we are right now.

Currently we are in the first 3 months of the 12 month launching phase. We are tightening up our vision, mission and values, along with praying about our team. The conference, hosted by Randy Smith (Discovery Church, NJ) and Hal Mayer (The Church at the Bay) was a practical time of learning how to build and launch a team.

If you are thinking on planting a church in the near future, I would recommend this conference to anyone.

Tonight at church, we challenged everyone in our community to participate in the 30 Day Sex Challenge. This was originally developed by Relevant Church in Tampa. In fact, the lead pastor and his wife recently wrote a book on the topic 30 Day Sex Challenge:  A Journey to Intimacy.

I think this is the answer for many of the struggles that we all go through. The challenge is simple:  if you are married, sex everyday for 30 days. If you are single, abstaining from sex for 30 days. I would say for singles, that includes sex, oral sex, self-love, the whole list.

Why 30 days? They say it takes 30 days to create a habit.

To go with the challenge, Relevant developed an assorment of resources. There is an emotional needs questionnaire, a 30 day devotional guide for couples, and a 30 day devotional guide for singles. These are great ways to journey through this challenge. As a couple or as a single, you can journal and work through questions that deal with your feelings, fears, uncertainties and joys that come up because of the challenge.

Should be a good time.