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.

The Bad

As great as Facebook has been for our church and the way it has helped us reach people who were once far from God, it has also brought a “bad” side with it. That bad side is unrealistic expectations.

One way that Facebook has changed our culture is people depend on it for communicating and receiving information. And I believe they depend on it to a fault. If you don’t believe me, just wait until you find out someone you are close to is either in or out of a relationship. Then you’ll find out everyone knows but you. Chances are, it’s because it became “Facebook Official” and you missed it. That’s because people now assume if they put something on Facebook, you should know it.

Then you have the people who love to be ambiguous with loaded comments. “I’m happy today and can’t tell you why!” “Someone I know has a big announcement coming but I’m not sure who!” or “Lots of prayers needed today but that’s all I can really say about that.” Translated as “I need attention and know that I’ll get 20 comments and private messages if I say something ambiguous.” And then there’s the passive aggressive person who drops you as their friend and waits to see how long it takes for you to notice. If you don’t notice fast enough, you don’t care about anyone but yourself. If you notice too quickly, you’re vain. You can’t win.

So what’s the big deal about all of this? Not only does it perpetuate incredibly unhealthy relationships, but it becomes a HUGE problem when these expectations creep into the church.

More times than I would like to admit, someone has gotten offended because they posted some life-changing announcement on Facebook and no one from the church came to visit, called, or sent a meal. People have gotten feelings hurt because an ambiguous comment or “prayer request” didn’t get enough comments. And yes – sadly – some of our leaders have reported being dropped as someone’s friend and not realizing it fast enough or noticing it too quickly.

In each of these situations, I have tried to communicate gently that we don’t have a Facebook Pastor spending all day perusing all 900 Facebook profiles of people who are somehow connected to OneLife. We have even begun teaching this in our Partnership Class and set-up a system for caring for people when they contact us directly through appropriate channels. We’ve even set a boundary as a staff to not use Facebook to communicate to OneLifers for church-related “business” to ensure no one falls through the cracks.

People who are connected to OneLife are cared for when we know they need to be cared for. But one bad thing Facebook has brought us is unrealistic expectations for those who simply rely on Facebook to communicate for them.

Whatever happened to a good ole fashioned email saying “I need help.”? Shoot, I’ll even take courier pigeons, smoke signals, or a dang telegram. Just something direct without assumptions and unrealistic expectations. We want to help, but we can’t if we don’t know what’s needed.

Why do you think people rely so much on Facebook? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Last week I shared something with the OneLife staff guys that I don’t say lightly: I’m more excited about OneLife Church now than I have ever been! Here’s why I’m so dang pumped about this coming Sunday.

• More people have come to Christ in the past 3 weeks at OneLife than any other 3-week time in our existence. I just KNOW there will be more this Sunday!
• This week we are talking about something that will BLOW some people’s minds. A lot of self-proclaimed Christians might actually become Christians if they grasp what we’re going to talk about!
• People are hurting. Our church and community are filled with the lost, lonely, and the least. But we are seeing signs of these people being ministered to through Communities (our groups ministry), Volunteer Teams, our awesome staff, and prayer. It’s beautiful to see the church BE the church!
• Momentum has never been higher. Our Communities are all full, new volunteers are coming forward every Sunday, families are being centered on Christ, and we are starting to make an ever-so-slight dent in our community. Keep the pedal to the metal, OneLifers!
• Our OneLife Kidz area is stronger than ever. Kids are truly being ministered to, not just babysat. We believe this time in our kiddos lives is the best time for them to learn and worship on their level to see them grow up in Christ. They don’t need to be in adult environments, they need kid-friendly environments. Our volunteers are incredible at making that happen and getting better at it all the time.
• We will be one week closer to a HUGE announcement that I’ll be sharing next Sunday. Here’s a hint…it will happen the week before Easter and has nothing at all to do with eggs or a helicopter. But it will be AMAZING!

If you miss a Sunday during this incredible time for our church, you are missing so much more than a service. Get involved! Help us do this thing! Jesus is changing lives and changing our community. Don’t miss out on that!

See ya Sunday at 10 or 11:30. And don’t come alone!

When generosity increases in a church, does it accomplish more than just padding a bank account or raising salaries? I’ve learned the answer is a big, fat YES!

A few short months ago, our 13-month old church was struggling financially. Attendance and ministry need had outgrown giving in a big way. The words “spending freeze” had become so common around our office that we actually started wondering if this was a church or the dang Weather Channel.

After a couple months of just hoping it would miraculously turn around, I decided we just needed to work on it. So we did. First up was a Christmas offering that we dreamed of reaching $10,000 (considering last year’s brought in a whopping $800, this was quite a stretch!). Lots of prayer and tons of hard work later we shattered our goal of $10,000 and topped $16,000!

Let the party begin. We had arrived!

That is, until January rolled around, our foot came off the gas, and we successfully had the worst financial month in our now 17-month history.

At that point we could just continue our spending freeze and hope for change to happen, or we could get intentional and strategic. So back to work we went, being intentional and strategic about creating a culture of generosity in our church. Vision casting, teaching, follow-ups, and online giving got our full attention. And the results have been nothing short of the miracle I was hoping for months ago.

Over the past three weeks we have seen the highest attendance, highest giving, and – most importantly – the most people to come to Christ in a three-week time period since our church began. Is it a coincidence that as generosity has increased so, too, has life-change and attendance? Not a chance.

When OneLifers become generous, spiritual maturity increases and they are more bought in to the vision. When spiritual maturity and buy-in increases, momentum increases. People don’t miss as many Sundays. They invite more friends. They pray for their church. The Gospel is spread, and lives are changed.

Creating a culture of generosity is about much more than numbers and dollar signs. It is truly about life-change and spreading the Gospel. But it takes work – work that’s definitely worth it in the end.

Thank you, OneLifers, for working to be a generous church!

* Special thanks to Casey Graham and The Change Group for helping me so much over the past few months to grow in this area! If you are a pastor or church leader, definitely check him out.

“Excellence” is one of the many buzz-words at most church plants and self-proclaimed “modern” churches I’ve been exposed to. But there’s one major issue.

What exactly is excellence?

At OneLife, we’ve wrestled with this from the beginning. And one thing that surfaced very early was something I learned from my buddy Bruce Pearl in nearly every interview I heard him do in his first year at UT: It’s all about the process!

If our product (whatever that may be) is excellent but the process to get there is a big ole mess, count me out. It’s fake excellence. What we want is a culture of excellence, not just products of excellence. A culture of excellence will affect everything we do: the staff throughout the week, volunteer expectations, OneLife Kidz, the worship service, and on and on it goes.

This morning I shared with our staff what it is going to take for OneLife to have excellence as a culture and not just a buzz-word. It’s going to take a “that can’t happen!” culture.

In other words, gone are the days of accepting mediocrity in anything we do. When something begins to slip, we must approach it saying “That can’t happen!” When something or someone falls through the cracks, “That can’t happen!” When we begin to accept low-risks instead of trusting our BIG God, “That can’t happen!” When my relationship with God isn’t where it should be, “That can’t happen!” When someone doesn’t view their volunteer responsibilities as if eternity weighs in the balance, “That can’t happen!” And when those pesky details don’t get the attention they deserve, “THAT can’t happen!”

What I’ve learned is that no matter how great things are now and no matter how good we get at making things look good on the surface, if we let this culture erode over time then we will lose our excellence and therefore our effectiveness. No matter how much we say we want excellence, if we accept mediocrity at ANY level it will eat us alive. And that CAN’T happen!

OneLifers, our God deserves our best. We as a staff are committed to helping you and our church give him nothing short of that. And when we see the early signs of it slipping away, we’re gonna commit to this battle cry:

That can’t happen!