You Don’t Have It All Together and Neither Do I :: Mark Beeson

• There is a new terrain we must nativage together.
• Today in the world everything you do is instant, global and permanent.
• Things are instantly captured and sent around the globe and forever there.
• It’s a new day with new challenges.
• We wonder what the role and place of the church is around the world and in our local communities.
• Is there any significance in it at all?
• Until this generation you needed teachers and masters to learn the craft and trade… today you don’t need a master, mentor or teacher, you’ve got google. You can get knowledge without human touch.
• That’s never been the case until now.
• We can get knowledge through the web, but can we get wisdom?
• The Church is going to have to face one of the great challenges on the horizon… the challenge of technology.
• We’re going to need a well-defined theology on the value of human touch, material world connection.
• We are moving into a virtual society.
• What is the value of incarnation?
• What is the value of community?
• It’s important that we leverage new technologies to seek it.
• Where does the material world weigh in on physical touch and community?
• If you don’t tweet, text, Facebook or blog, you need to… or you should maybe consider quitting your job.
• Our business is the people business, so we must connect with technologies that make friends with people we’ve never seen.
• If we’re going to have moral authority to speak into the lives of others, we need to be engaged and leveraging technologies they are using.
• If we are going to be relevant today we better figure out what “that” is, how “it” works and what God has to say about it.
• People today have friends they’ve never met, seen or touched. The definition of community is changing.
• If we apply good theology to technology we can leverage it for good.
• If we ignore it we might find ourselves without influence in culture because we can’t even communicate with culture.
• Our great challenge is to figure out a way to be able to bring people together in creative fashion to bring the love of God to the world.
• We should pray, regularly and continually.
• As our culture changes, we need to build teams to communicate and connect so that Christ is glorified and everyone knows who He is… that He is Lord and King.
• These innovations are so critical and we’re going to have to understand to get done what we need to get done, we need to collaborate and build teams.
• We need to bring different people together around different projects to bring God glory.

Exposed… How it Really Is.

• Exposed. Being exposed is threatening for many of us because we are in pain.
• There are moments of difficulty and pain that can grow you and stretch you like never before.
• In your valley, know we have all been there.
• Time have been tough and this has been a challenging season.
• You’re not alone.

Building Teams

• Every one of you who is trying to build a team… how do you make a team out of people that are so different?
• That’s what God is calling us to do.
• He calls us to take people He’s brought to us and bring them together.
• What do you do to build a team?
• There are things that weave teams together… our mission, vision, values that we share.
• Our mission weaves us together.
• Our vision holds us together.
• Our values bind us together.
• It all creates unity.
• Unity is not uniformity.
• Everyone has a past… what you see isn’t always what you get.
• Everyone has momentum. What’s behind it and what’s pushing people?
• The laws of physics apply to humanity as well.
• People need an outside force to change their course.
• Sometimes all people need is clarity. Clarity on the mission, vision and values.
• Specify the mission, vision and values of your local church.

2 Questions to Ask…

• WHY should people go to church?
• WHY do I think people should come to my church?
• If you can’t answer that, you might need to rethink why people need church at all.
• Is what we’re doing worth people changing their course for?

Teammates

• When we all agree on the mission, vision and values, it creates a team.
• We say, “I’d like to do this with you…”
• Most people spend more time interacting with their teammates than with you, the leader.
• If you have a bunch of knuckleheads around you that can’t play well with others… good luck finding people to join your team.
• There’s no value in collaborating with people who can’t collaborate.

We have to understand that every group is a free association or a covenant community.

• Free association society is something you are born into. You didn’t earn it.
• This culture, has been for the church, favorable.
• We’ve had people born in the culture that have had a bent toward the values we teach.
• You can’t enter into a covenant community until you commit to it.
• To get into the community you have to learn about it.
• The Church in America free association… it’s not a covenant community. That’s why it’s been decline.
• It’s become a free association culture in the church.
• The early church never knew this. They were required to keep a covenant.
• We’ve failed to insist on teaching covenant.
• Anything goes and community has been lost… it can only be recovered by people who will do covenant.

To a world where anything goes, we’re inviting people to covenant community. Where people are known and loved, valued and cherished, and know God’s purpose for their life. And then they are able to invite people into the fabric of God’s Kingdom.

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