I am pumped up about every Sunday at OneLife Church. But every once in a while, a Sunday comes along that I am hopeful more than ever that people understand just how crucial it is that they be there, and not come alone.

This Sunday is one of those days!

We’ve been rolling through some incredible series in 2011. The most recent two have been lifestyle changers. “Unstoppable” challenged us all to share our stories and change the world. “WEiRD” has challenged us to be different, please God more than people, and focus on what He wants us to do more than what people want us to do. And it ends this Sunday with a bang.

The whole idea behind Christianity is weird. Something for nothing? That’s not normal. Unconditional love? Easier said than done. Giving me the opposite of what I deserve? Weird! And that’s exactly what we’ll be talking about this Sunday. It’s the kind of sermon that will remind Christians just how much we have to be thankful for, while leading unbelievers to the knowledge that God loves them right where they are but doesn’t want them to stay there! He wants them to be WEiRD with us!

So I know that it’s 4th of July weekend and the temptation is there to just skip church, go to the lake, sleep in, or head to the pool. But give God just ONE hour on Sunday and watch him rock your world with it. And don’t you dare come alone This is that kind of day that can change your friends, family, or neighbors in a way that will blow their mind! Do whatever it takes to get someone there with you and you’ll be playing a role in changing eternity once and for all.

So I look forward to seeing you on Sunday…because it’s one you just CAN’T miss!

In the church world, anonymous notes are far too common. And they’re usually mean. It’s the avenue that cowardly people use to make themselves feel better as they trash the beliefs, ideas, education, looks, family, and anything else about a pastor or church that you can imagine!

Over the years I’ve seen some nasty ones. I’ve seen a pastor told that he was the reason his wife had a miscarriage. I’ve seen a pastor threatened to have lawyers come remove him from his church. Personally, I’ve been called uneducated and told I didn’t know what I was talking about in certain theological or scientific areas. Our church has been classified as a cult. It’s always interesting, and always by people who are too scared to put their name to their empty threats and hateful claims.

Because these notes hold as much value as a stale biscuit, our staff knows that if one surfaces in the offering, an email inbox, or our post office box, that it immediately gets thrown into the trash. If you don’t care enough to put your name on it, we don’t care enough to read it. But I guess there can always be exceptions.

I accidentally ran across one that got put in my mail tray in the office because it was a letter addressed to me and had not yet been opened. As I read it, I didn’t realize it was anonymous because something was different about this letter. It was nice. It was respectful. It addressed a legitimate concern about something that happened on a Sunday I was absent. It was short and to the point. It didn’t slam me or our church but built me and our church up in encouragement. And to be honest, I was glad I read it! I got to the end and was surprised to see that it wasn’t signed. But for a change, that was ok.

This person was apparently new to our church and didn’t realize that we have an honest, open, and transparent culture at OneLife. If they had signed this letter, I would have responded with such gratitude and appreciation because it helped us fix a problem and because it was done with love and respect.

That’s how you write an anonymous note…as if you aren’t anonymous! Otherwise, you’re just a coward saying things you would never say in “real life” and your opinion holds no value.

This week I heard about Bill Maher’s closing monologue from a couple months ago and had to look it up. In between expletives, crass comments, and his political rhetoric came (drumroll please) – truth.

At the very end of his four-minute tirade about the hypocrisy of Christians he makes two comments that hit me like a ton of bricks. First was…

“I’m just saying logically: if you ignore every single thing that Jesus commanded you to do, you’re not Christian!…You’re not Christ’s followers, you’re just fans.”

Woah! That last part was a zinger and it…well…it kind of hurt! I began to think about my own life. Do I follow Jesus? Do I really do everything that he commanded me to do? Or am I just a fan? Am I someone that just goes to church and claims to be a Christian because I don’t want to go to hell? And then came my big question: what about our church? Are we followers or merely fans?

A follower will leave everything to follow. A fan will stay at home, leave nothing, and just stay in touch about what goes on.
A follower will get uncomfortable and go wherever it is that is needed to go. A fan will watch on TV from the comfort of a lazy-boy.
A follower will stick by through the thick and thin. A fan will run at the first sign of difficulty.
A follower will sacrifice everything. A fan will sacrifice nothing.

Then he threw in one other zinger that made me remember why OneLife Church exists.

“I’m a non-Christian. Just like most Christians!”

Such is the state of American Christianity. A lot of people who go to church but ignore what Jesus commanded. A lot of fans who aren’t true followers. And a lot of “Christians” who aren’t, well, Christians.

A few days ago I shared the three things I strive for in each sermon. It must be biblical, memorable (one point!), and have a clear next step. Sometimes we hit a homerun on this and other times we evaluate and realize it could have been better. Oftentimes these evaluations carry over into what we should fix in the process. So what’s the process?

Glad you asked!

Series ideas come out of lots of prayer and God revealing what our church needs to focus on next. I usually plan sermon series six months at a time so we always know what is coming ahead. We then have an incredible creative process led by our Creative Director Tyler Goode. I give him my my rough ideas, bottom line for the series, and individual sermon points. He then takes a team through the process of coming up with series titles, stage designs, creative elements, sermon titles, song ideas, and anything else that could come from the series.

Before this creative meeting takes place I fill out a questionnaire that lets Tyler and his team know what each week of that series will cover, the scriptures we will use, and what I hope to communicate. I then take that information, combine it with the creative elements Tyler’s team comes up with, and turn it in to individual sermons. My process to get there starts with studying the scripture. This includes studying the Greek and Hebrew, reading commentaries, articles, and blogs, and listening to other sermons that deal with the text. That info then gets boiled down to only what will point to the main idea of the sermon, which means a lot of good stuff gets left out! The final step is organizing it in a way that will create tension, tell a story, and apply to every person at OneLife.

So OneLifers, as you can see we love you and what we do so much that by the time you hear a 35 minute sermon, a lot of hard work has gone in to making sure people far from God can discover him and how their one life can make a difference. And unlike a lot of churches, we have a team working to make it happen, not just one guy!

This process has evolved over the past 21 months thanks to the help of lots of other great churches and pastors. We constantly evaluate the process and are always learning, so I’m sure it will look even more different another 21 months from now.

But for now, that’s our process behind the sermons.

This post started radically different and half-way through I realized a change of course was needed. Instead of just doing one blog post about sermons at OneLife, I’m going to make this a little series. Lots of people ask me about how we decide to do certain sermons so I hope this will help answer that. And if nothing else, it will force me to think through what we do to see if we can do it even better!

When we started OneLife 21 months ago, there was key point that was important to me in this department: teach less for more! I’ve sat in literally thousands of church services in my life and can only remember a few sermons. Something’s wrong with that! The ones that I can remember were simple, biblical, and applicable. So here’s what I strive for, and this is what I ask some guys to keep me accountable to doing each week.

1. Stick to the Bible! There’s nothing that I hate worse than to hear some guy go on and on in a sermon about their opinion in an area. I want to know something with authority. So it is important to me that the meat of every sermon be based straight out of the Bible. That’s why 9 times out of 10 we will focus on just one passage of scripture to answer that day’s topic (yes, most sermons are expository because expository does NOT mean exclusively going through an entire book of the Bible at one time! But that’s another soapbox blog post for another day…). We dig deep into that passage to see what God wants us to know from His Word.

2. One point is all they need. I read a book that dramatically changed my view on this called Communicating for Change. In it the author, Andy Stanley, challenges preachers that have multiple points to break those points down into sermons and use what was just one sermon and make it a series. We did that recently with our Unstoppable series. Each sermon was about the importance of sharing your faith with those who don’t yet believe. But instead of throwing four points out at once, we focused each week on a different point and drove down deep. The results were people actually doing what the Bible says to do! PS…this usually means a sermon won’t be more than about 35 minutes long, which is a win-win for everyone! (I’ve never heard someone say “Man, I wish that guy had preached LONGER.” And those nursery volunteers start hating long-winded preachers after a while!) Not to mention, most of Jesus’ sermons were pretty simple and to the point. Again, another blog post for another day!

3. Make it doable. The last two things I always ask myself about a sermon before it gets preached is “So what?” and “Now what?” By asking “so what?” I am making sure that this topic won’t just be intellectual knowledge. The last thing people need is more trivia to remember. They need to know what in the world it has to do with them. Then the “now what?” makes sure there is a clear, next step for people to do something with what they’ve heard.

Improving in the area of sermon preparation and delivery is something I am in the midst of every week. My sermons are evaluated by one of my mentors, I read books about communication, and I listen to lots of other preachers. So I’m sure this will change as I get older. But for now, this is what we strive for at OneLife. And over the next few days, I’ll share how we get there each week with a little behind the scenes look!