Zach Zehnder's Blog, page 24

The 5 Best Habits to Form While Quarantined

One of the phrases I’ve heard a lot in the midst of the global pandemic we are living in, is “Don’t waste a crisis.”  As hard as it may be, as dark as it may be, don’t waste a crisis.

Here’s my question: What if, in the midst of this crisis, you could become more like Christ?

Many of us in this season have uncluttered time like never before.  We’ve been forced into new decisions and new daily routines.  Calendars have become completely wiped out.  New habits are being formed.  Bad and Good.

Multiple studies have confirmed that about 40% of the “decisions” we make in this world, aren’t actually decisions, but habits in our lives.  Therefore, it’s important we recognize what habits are in our lives.

In this quarantined time, did you know that alcohol sales are up somewhere between 55 and 75% in our country over the same time as last year?  Porn sites have seen a major increase in engagement.  Carbs and sugary products are flying off the shelves.  And just like the “Freshman 15,” all sorts of memes about the “Quarantine 15” are starting to pop up as many are gaining weight in this time.

Those are obviously not the long-lasting habits we want in our lives.

At the same time, good habits are being formed.  This morning, YouVersion, makers of the Bible App, said that they saw “the largest increasement ever, with more people searching the Bible for hope and peace, sharing Bible verses and Verse Images with others, and engaging in God’s Word with their families through the Bible App for Kids.  Many families that have tried to implement daily devotions and failed in the past are using this time to establish this routine.  Family meals are occurring more far more often, and simply put, most people are using this time to grow in their relationship with God.  In my church alone, 81% say this is a time they are using to employ better habits!

New habits are being formed!  But not all habits are equal.

The best habits to form are keystone habits.  Charles Duhigg, author of the New York Times bestseller, The Power of Habits, defines keystone habits this way:  “a habit that people introduce into their lives that unintentionally carry over into other aspects of their lives.”

Keystone habits create a domino effect that can change every area of your life. One crucial habit leads to other good habits. A keystone habit is no more difficult to form than any other one, but it provides multiplied benefits.  Some examples of keystone habits in our world are exercising regularly, tracking what you eat, making your bed every morning, and flossing your teeth.  There is much scientific research that shows these habits carry over into other areas of our lives.

But not all keystone habits are created equal either.  I believe that no habits create a greater domino effect in our lives than spiritual habits that help us grow in our relationship with God.  And if we are looking to grow in our relationship with God, it’s important we look to the only one who was in perfect relationship with God, and that is Jesus Christ.

For the past two years, I’ve been researching the habits of Jesus and also looking at some modern-day research in regards to habits, and I believe these are the 5 keystone habits of Jesus that Jesus practiced:

Commit to Community
Study Scripture
Prioritize Prayer
Seek Solitude
Choose Church

Even when our world looks nothing like what it did a month ago, and certainly nothing like the time in which Jesus lived, these same five keystone habits of Jesus will help you grow in your relationship with God and ultimately help you become a greater follower of Jesus.

We will be doing a much deeper dive into these 5 keystone habits of Jesus as we enter into the FREE Online Being Challenge, starting April 19th.  For more info, check out www.redletterchallenge.com/obc.  I’ll be leading you with daily videos that will challenge you to become more like Christ.  We will not waste this crisis.

We will use this crisis to become more like Christ!

Zach Zehnder

The post The 5 Best Habits to Form While Quarantined appeared first on Red Letter Challenge.

Raising Kids to Follow Jesus

Summertime at our house is full of traditions and rituals that announce the arrival of our favorite season.

I love the magic of a family ritual…the warm buttery smell of stove-top popcorn on a movie night or the sight of shimmery, sandy hills which separate you from reaching that first cool foamy-white ocean wave.

The sounds of a crackling fire pit warming flip-flopped toes and roasting marshmallows to a gooey golden brown or the feel of oily sunscreen on warm cheeks indented with goggle outlines.

The taste of a chocolate ice cream cone making brown mustaches and dribbling down elbows before making its final dive to a hot sidewalk.

Having rituals is a key component to creating habits: natural occurring practices in our daily life. A woman named Wendy Wood monitored people’s daily behavior and found that 45% of the decisions we make are actually habits. Almost half of what we do we don’t even think about.

I believe that most parents want to incorporate spirituality and faith into their child’s daily life. So I don’t think I actually need to sell you on the importance of why you should do Bible studies with your children, but maybe I can challenge you on the importance of “Why this one?”

If our goal is to raise kids who regularly practice faith: the best way to do it is to make it a habit in their lives. Scientists say that to create a new habit one needs to make any routine to a habit: and this is exactly what you will find yourself doing.

Starting basic and making small choices can lead to really big changes in the future.

Red Letter Challenge for Kids is specifically modeled with the intent of creating habit forming, life-long rituals in your children’s lives with just a little change (even our challenges are called bite-sized). Each day children will read words that Jesus specifically commanded them to do. They will explore what exactly Jesus meant when He said those words, and finally they will take what they learned and apply it to their daily lives through a challenge. This is exactly how we should be reading and interpreting scripture as a ritual in our lives.

Proverbs 4:20-22 says, “My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”

So between your firework watching, corn-on-the-cob eating, firefly catching, and swimming pool splashing find time to create a family ritual that will last a lifetime: the habit of reading and applying God’s word. Why not start with Red Letter Challenge for Kids which will give you that small step you are waiting to take towards a desired goal?

You will give your child a priceless tool which will form their character and heart and that they will treasure for decades to come.

If you haven’t heard the great news RLC for Kids is coming out later this summer!  To get a FREE copy, join our launch team on Facebook.  But hurry, less than 70 spots remain.  Just enter the password “challenge.”  And if you miss out on the Launch Team, have no worries, you can get access to your copy of RLC for Kids later this summer.

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A Theological Response on the Necessity of a Repentance Prayer

Being that I serve in a Lutheran Church, I have had many people reach out to me inquiring about the theological basis of a repentance prayer, like the one laid out in Day 13, which states:

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for your forgiveness.  I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead.  I turn from my sins and invite you to come into my heart and life.  I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior.  In Your Name.  Amen.

As Lutherans, we are often leery of taking credit away from God in the process of salvation, and so I wanted to post a theological response as to the basis of a prayer like this.

This was one of the questions I received:

I serve in an LCMS church and there was some confusion about how to take this prayer, especially in light Luther’s explanation to the third article. Could you possible help give some insight on how you saw this being played out in a Lutheran context? I

Our response:

I will assume you are referring to Part 1 of the third article which I’ll include below.

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

What does this mean?

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.

The central thought, according to the central explanation of Luther’s Small Catechism is that “I believe…that I cannot believe.” As fallen people, we are unable to find God on our own, let alone choose to entrust our lives to Him.

This was reiterated in the entire reading of Day 13, and I will walk you through it.

Beginning with the story of my speeding tickets and being unable to save myself from the verdict (and a fair verdict, I WAS guilty) …it continued with a confessional in Romans 3:10 and the understanding that we are all sinful and lost. “We are all guilty- that includes you.”

This is a bleak and troubling realization; a sobering one that should hit hard to both the life-long Christian and also the person who may be coming to this realization for the very first time.

It is the crushing blow of the Law. (1 Cor. 2:14, Gen 8:21, Romans 5:12, Eph 2:3)

But…

at the bottom of page 89 there is a shift in direction. “Yet no matter how serious, big or awful your sin is, God’s grace extends to cover it.” Everything after that is a deliverance of the Gospel, the good news of what Jesus did.

The devotional continues, “When our hearts object and say we could never be forgiven, God says, “Objection Overruled” because the blood of His Son Jesus is powerful enough, pure enough, and strong enough to cover all your sins.”

In the explanation of the Third Article part 1 of Luther’s Catechism (pg. 195) it is suggested that the reader read Acts 9:1-22, and that is the exact scripture that the devotional ends with, just in case a person’s role in conversion still isn’t clear.

So back to your question. After reading the entire devotional, we come to the challenge, or response at the end.

“Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior. In Your Name, Amen.”

The Holy Spirit calls, enlightens and sanctifies us so we can have faith.

The primary purpose of the prayer is an acknowledgement of that work of the Holy Spirit though the saving death and resurrection of Jesus.

Over and over in the Psalms King David asked for God’s help on the grounds that he is innocent and righteous. He was not declaring that it is by his own merits or strength. He can only make those claims about himself based on His understanding of what God has declared over him.

In Day 13 the reader would have heard the Word through the Holy Spirit as they read the scripture portions for that day and, enabled by the Holy Spirit, the reader can cry out to the Lord. The declaration of repentance and the invitation of lordship over their heart comes from the understanding that this is the work of God alone, and not them.

With the understanding that we cannot come to faith by our own reason or strength, (1 Cor 2:14, Ephesians 2:1, and 1 Cor 12:3) we understand it even further that not only are we dead in our sins, but we actively resist the Gospel’s call to faith ((Acts 7:51, Romans 8:7, Gal 5:17).

Not all who hear the Gospel believe in Jesus as their Lord. Many people reject the Gospel and resist the Holy Spirit. (Matt 23:37, Acts 7:51, Matt 22:1-10 or Luke 14:16-24).

To pray the prayer in Day 13 is going against their fleshly desire to reject the Word.

The description of the action on the part of the sinner, “I turn from my sins” or “invite you to come into my heart and life” does not teach salvation by works any more than Christ, Paul, or James teaches salvation by works when they stress the necessity of good works in the lives of God’s children. In dozens of places, Scriptures emphasizes that we are saved by grace through faith, and not our own works.

But all of the writers of Scripture agree that a living faith expresses itself through good works. Our works, motivated by Christian love, demonstrate the reality of our faith. On judgement day, Jesus will point to these works of love as evidence of our faith.

So as a reader prayers this prayer it is a demonstration of the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives enabling them to even pray the prayer and not their own work.

The emphasis is always, and will forever be on the work of Jesus alone.

I hope this helps.

Written by Allison and Zach Zehnder

 

The post A Theological Response on the Necessity of a Repentance Prayer appeared first on Red Letter Challenge.

How to Implement and What to Expect from the RLC 40-Day Church Campaign

We have many churches that ask specific questions about how to implement RLC as a 40-day church campaign. We have collected some data and a few best practices from the past in order to help you determine if RLC is right for your congregation.

What to Expect?

In 2018, 100% of pastors highly recommended RLC for future congregations to use. Churches that completed the RLC saw an average of 40% small group growth in addition to many churches seeing a rise in overall engagement (both in attendance and social media) among many other positive metrics.  In order to see this growth, we recommend churches use the RLC as a full 40-day campaign (which consists of Sunday services and preaching (we have FREE manuscripts and videos online), individuals having their own RLC workbooks, and those individuals also meeting in weekly small groups during the week (we also have FREE small group guides and FREE videos online)). In addition, the simplicity of the writing of the RLC has proven to be effective with students, both in middle school and in high school.  In addition, we have created a weekly kid’s curriculum for use in Preschool-5th grade because we believe children can and should be learning these same principles.  Churches that have seen the best results fully align their kid’s ministry, student ministry, and adult ministries for 40 days with RLC!

Church Package Discounts:

We have many church packages ready to go here with discounts of 10-40% off depending on the package size. However, if you need a different quantity or would like to do it differently than listed on that link, simply email us and we’ll give you a comparable quote.  When people get an RLC workbook, they aren’t just getting any book!  People rave about the quality of the book, and the first time you hold it, you will see that it is heavy on design, thick, unique size, and three colors.

Choosing the Right Package Size:

Churches that have done the above approach and promoted and distributed it well have seen 90% of their average weekly worship attendance buy books.  If you worship 100 on a weekend (including kids), that means you’ll sell 90 or above if you see similar results as others.  Churches have been blown away and more than 50% of churches have to reorder, pleasantly surprised at the number of churchgoers that participate.  The books are in stock and depending on the shipping method you choose could get to you in 3-7 business days.

Graphics Pre-Made:

We have tried to make this 40-day experience as turnkey as possible, so we have made available some graphics for you to use (everything from fliers to posters to social media graphics to sermon slides, etc.).  You can download, use, and edit them as much as needed.  Simply email us and let us know who to send a link to a Dropbox folder that contains so many graphics that it will save you and your team many hours of work on your end.

Weekly Kids Curriculum:

We now have this available on our website under Free Resources.  This is the curriculum that you can teach the kids on Sunday so they are learning the same main concepts as the adults.  You can see it here.

Promotion Time:

We recommend a 3-4 week lead time with books in hand.  You can use this video to help promote it.  We also believe that the best promotion comes when the lead pastor and key leaders in the congregation show their excitement in as many areas as possible (stage, pulpit, social media, etc.).

Recommended Distribution Strategies:

We have seen churches that share the cost of the workbooks with those in their church be more effective than trying to charge full price.  Some churches have found one donor or used some discipleship budget dollars to help offset the cost of the books so they could get the books to their attendees at a suggested donation of $5 or $10 which is a much better price point for most congregations.  As a pastor, if I know I can get somewhere between 20-40% more people involved for 40 days by simply investing around $5-$10 a person, I consider that a cost well worth it!  Usually by telling the congregation what the books cost, and then letting them know they are sharing the cost with them, and inviting them to give more or donate towards someone else who can’t afford most churches make up at least 80% of their initial investment, and many recoup their entire cost.

A couple of churches have actually bought more books than their average weekly worship attendance and hand-delivered a Free Red Letter Challenge book to each member of their church/school a few weeks in advance with an invite card.  As a result, their worship attendance, small groups, and offerings increased as a result of RLC so that could be a great option. Churches that have used this strategy believe that the 40 days of RLC strengthened their congregation in so many areas that their cost to do RLC was minimal compared to the long term impact it’s still having on their people.

No-Risk Refund:

We want this to be as risk-free as possible.  We offer a full refund for unused books.  All you would have to do is pay for the shipping cost back, which averages just over $1 a book through Insured Media Mail.  Out of 100 churches that have completed it thus far, less than 5% have ordered too many, and typically, it’s because they have taken a different strategy than that of listed above.

Turnkey Campaign:

Everything you would need for RLC besides the workbooks is found on our website under FREE resources.  There you can see all of the following: small group videos, small group guides, sermon manuscripts and videos, kids curriculum, promotion video, and graphics package.

Collaborate with Other Pastors/Leaders:

It’s amazing to see what others do with RLC.  Because of the creativity and excellence of churches, we started a RLC Network Facebook closed group designed for pastors and leaders to collaborate and share some best practices for RLC.  Please send an email to us and we can invite you to be a part of this network so you can learn from others.

Extras:

We have extras available in our shop like Small Group DVDs, fridge magnets, wristbands, and even shirts available in our shop online.  None of these things are required but can enhance your RLC 40-day experience.  Please note, we do throw some of these things into the church packages that are ready to go for purchase here.

Recommendations:

We would be happy to send you a recommendation from other pastor(s). We have had churches of all sizes take part in RLC.  if you’d like to talk other pastor(s), please email us and include as much detail in your inquiry, especially average weekly worship attendance, and we will send you pastor(s) to connect with so you can hear of their amazing experience with RLC.

Best Strategic Time for 40 Day Campaign

These are the 5 best times we’ve seen to launch a 40-day church campaign.

Beginning of Year: You can promote heavily in December and at Christmas and build some serious momentum in the new year.
40 Days prior to Easter: Many churches will encourage people to give up something for the 40 days of Lent. We love this practice, but also, we’ve seen many churches encourage their people not just to give up something, but to start something new as well. There is nothing better to start than putting the words of Jesus into practice!
40 Days after Easter: You can promote heavily at Easter and really give your church something exciting to come back to the next week. Usually a church will have 6-8 weeks left after Easter while families are still in school and this can provide some great momentum going into the summer months.
Summer: While most churches decrease in attendance in summer months, the RLC is a great opportunity to start the summer with a jump, not a slump!
Fall: Weekly worship attendance is normally at its strongest in the Fall. Why not start the fall with a powerful 40-day church discipleship challenge? We encourage a start time any time after the school session is back and encourage churches to wrap up by Thanksgiving.

We know that is a lot of information but we want you to be well-informed.  If you have any questions at all, we are happy to help.  Please contact us here.  God bless you, and let’s make some effective disciples of Jesus Christ together!

The post How to Implement and What to Expect from the RLC 40-Day Church Campaign appeared first on Red Letter Challenge.