Joe Fontenot's Blog, page 16

Did you hear the one…

Did you ever hear the one about the Promised Land?

God said to Abraham, here it is. It’s all yours.

And then what?

Nothing.

Abraham lived to be old.

His son Isaac lived to be old. And his grandson, Jacob.

Then his great-grandson, Joseph–he lived to be old, too.

400 years pass by. Still not much to show.

Then Moses comes along. He gathers all the people (a lot by now). They escape Egypt only to wander around for a few decades eating bread on the ground. And not in the promised land.

Then, finally, Abraham’s children begin settling in. After half a millennium.

What happened?

And why did God make it seem like it was a done deal when he originally told Abraham?

Because, in many ways…it was.

This was the case then, and it’s the case now.

The in-between stuff is never a challenge to God. Instead, it’s a chance for us.

Paul, talking about Abraham, said, “That is why it depends on faith.” Abraham was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:16, 21). And in the process, he grew to be more like God.

That’s what God’s giving us.

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Minutiae, etc.

In Basketball, you win by getting the ball in your hoop more times than the other guys. Pretty simple.

There are other rules, too, like how many steps you can take, or how you can touch other players.

But those other rules are all in service of the greater: getting more baskets.

But here’s the interesting part. When the game’s over, almost nobody talks about the big thing–how many points were scored.

The discussion always finds the little things. Fouls, players’ attitudes.

And many times, these are the things that are remembered.

Paul writes it like this: “Run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24).

It’s not just about the prize. It’s about how we get there, too.

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“Let it be”

“Let it be done for you as you have believed”


– Jesus (Matthew 8:13)

Is your pattern of obedience based on fear (it’ll be bad if I don’t) or expectation (this will be good)?

It’s easy to confuse the two when following people, because their physical presence has a way of motivating.

Personally, I don’t want the shame of disappointing a good leader, often, just as much as I don’t want to miss the promise they’re giving me.

But when it comes to following God–who I cannot see or touch–this difference becomes apparent.

The centurion was able to leave Jesus and still trust him because his faith was not tied to fear, but to expectation.

He believed Jesus could and would do it.

The lesson for us:

If you’re following based on fear, your faith will always be small.

But if you’re following based on expectation, it will outgrow you, many times over.

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Serving Service

Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

“Bring them here to me,” he said (Matthew 14:16-18).

We don’t all have the gift of service.

But, yet, we’re all called to serve.

It’s always hard to serve people we don’t like. But the more we’re conditioned to do it, the easier it becomes–even for those we don’t like.

When you become a person people want to serve, you help them by teaching them what service feels like.

In other words, by being easy to serve, you become the catalyst to help others learn to serve.

Which, by the way, it what Jesus did.

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A New Age with an old problem

“See if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”


– Psalm 139:24

New Age Spiritualism sounds like it would be off-beat. Something for weird people.

But it’s actually quite common.

In New Age Spirituality you are bad on the inside until you discover that you are really good. Then, through the right mindset, you blossom into a better you.

Contrast this with Christianity. In Christianity, God values you, but you alone are not good. It is restoration between you and God that makes you good.

In the one, your self-doubt and bad behavior is imagined or out-grown. In the other, you are lifted out by the only one who has a track record of success.

One option takes ego.

The other takes, necessarily, less ego.

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How to build downward forces

NEW: Every Friday, I’m doing church growth posts, where I look at practical ways you can get more people involved. I’m calling this “marketing.”

(This is part 2. Read part 1 here.)

In order to get someone to move toward more commitment, you need three things:

1) Focus


2) A path


3) A tweet-length narrative that connects the first two

First, focus. This is about saying no to 99.9% of the good options so that you can say yes to the 0.01%.

Most churches don’t get this far. It’s too hard to say no to good programs. Plus, there’s the backlash for members who are heavily invested. But time and again, it’s not the frenzied that get ahead, it’s the focused.

Second, a path. Once you’ve established the narrow area you are going to focus on, a path connects your offerings in a linear way. It tells your members: what we’re doing here isn’t arbitrary.

You’ll know you’ve got a path in place when a progression forms. If, for instance, the path goes from worship gathering to small groups, then what do small groups have that the gathering doesn’t? And why would a person who wants to grow more see that as an obvious next step? Answering these questions tells you when you’ve got a path that works.

And third, a narrative. This is you taking your (and your audience’s) motivation and wrapping it in a story.

(A “story,” by the way, is just a framework: you’ve got a problem, but we’ve found a solution. Here’s how to get to your happy ending. Every blog I write is a story.)

Once you get your narrative, boil it down to a tweet. If it’s longer than this, it’s probably not ready for public consumption yet. Once you can tweet it, put it everywhere.

What happens through this process is that those who are a good fit move down toward greater commitment. And those who were just here for free coffee, well, there are lots of places with free coffee.

P.S. If you’re the measuring type, doing this gives you clear levers to pull and adjust.

This is a concept I talk more about in Minimalist Marketing.

 

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Testing a teacher

“Where are your interests?”

In statement form, Jesus posed this question to those questioning him (John 7).

For his unusual and somewhat taboo methods, the people around him—the authorities around him—were challenging his credibility.

If ever there was someone qualified to defend his actions, seems it would be Jesus.

But he didn’t do that.

Instead, he walked them through the right way to think.

Who am I pointing to? he asked. If it’s me, then you’ve got the right to criticize. But if I’m pointing to the Father in heaven, then what’s your argument?

It’s the same for us.

We’re all messy and sinful. Not much argument there. But how do we know when one of us is on the right track or not? How do we know when that mess and sin and is throwing off the work of the kingdom?

The answer is, as Jesus pointed out: What are they interested in?

Is it God, or is it something else?

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Good work is a misfit

Good work is hard.

Introducing people to Jesus is hard.

Maintaining difficult relationships is hard.

Living consistently is hard.

Living as a transparent follower of Jesus is hard.

Doing something that makes a big difference in someone else’s life is hard.

But…

If these things weren’t hard, they’d be done already.

So, in some way, it’s good they’re hard. Because that means we get to help.

Jesus said, “a large crop is in the fields, but there are only a few workers” (Matthew 9:37).

The hard work is worth it.

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Fake Rolex

Have you ever come across a really good fake Rolex?

In a real Rolex, the second hand ‘sweeps’ by at eight ticks a second. This is because the inside (the “movement”) is full of gears and cranks. There’s no battery. But in a good fake, that ‘sweep’ may only be about five ticks per second.

Can you tell the difference between five and eight ticks per second?

Probably not.

Most of us can’t unless we really know what to look for.

Plus, when we compare buying a real Rolex ($8,000) to a good fake ($500), the good fake becomes pretty tempting.

But when you go to cash in, a certified Rolex dealer isn’t going to take a fake, no matter how good it looks.

***

Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

This doesn’t mean we can’t have certainty in our standing with God.

It just means we can’t fake it.

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Why are you a Christian? (10 ideas)

If were you to ask a Hindu or a Muslim or a person of another religion why they were that religion, most would say something along the lines of: it’s what I was given.

They may feel passionate about it, even be able to defend it. But, for most of them, it’s something they inherited from their parents.

What’s different about Christianity is that isn’t like this at all. As a matter of fact, it’s not Christianity if it was inherited.

That’s because at its core Christianity is a choice. And that is one of the things that makes it so special.

So if someone asked you, personally, why you’re a Christian…what would you say?

Here are ten ideas:

1. I learned the basics from my parents, but I discovered the truth of it myself.

2. I realized I couldn’t blame my problems on external things…and I also couldn’t fix them myself.

3. Anyone who follows Jesus gets the good life to come. Anyone who doesn’t is stuck with their own guilt and sin… forever and ever. (A paraphrase of John 3:36.)

4. Before I didn’t have peace. Now I do. In the middle—the glue that makes it all work—is God.

5. There is hope for the world. And it comes in becoming like Jesus. Not convinced? Give it a try. (This was Philip’s argument to Nathanael in John 1.)

6. The world is a mess. This is something that is evident everywhere we look. God saw this too. So he decided to do something about it.

7. Christianity is the only view that accounts for my sin…without suspending justice in the process.

8. Christianity provides the most hope for the most amount of people.

9. The Bible is a reliable, historical document. We can prove that. And that means, that the stories and miracles are real.

10. I met Jesus. And he’s real. He convinced me.

So, why are you a Christian?

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