Category — CoastlandTampa

…of all leaders, launchers most need interventional help

The Stand Up Guy for ‘Lost Causes’

The Power of A Magnificent Loss(es)

I am a lost cause

Every city I have planted in has been antithetical to a place that has potential

The people we attract are nearly all lost causes

This past Sunday was the seventh public weekend for Coastland. For those who follow such things as the trends of new launches, one wouldn’t expect much momentum on a traditionally churchy weekend at a newish church.  The fact is that it usually isn’t until the third year or beyond that a place experiences larger services on traditional weekends.

Surprisingly or not, we in fact had huge numbers.  People brought their friends, family, neighbors, etc. and a great time was had by all.

We finished up a series this past week dealing with overcoming the powers that keep us stuck… When we face shortages, or suspected shortages, we naturally hoard what little we have.  The way out of such a bind is give what we have in hand.

We pooled our funds, in a combined act of overcoming the fear of not enough, and gave strongly to a new outward-aimed church in the area: an Ethiopian church near downtown Tampa. I’m not clear on the amount that was given but it was significant in light of our typical weekly offering.  People love to be generous - as long as it really gets to where change is going to make a difference. 

There was a hush in the room as the offering was taken. It was a still but awesome moment.

One guy who was there for the first time told me he began to tear up as he drove near our location. He saw our signs pointing him toward our location and he began to grow in anticipation in a way that was unexplainable. He was more or less without words throughout the morning. 

Thoughts along the outward journey from Janie Sjogren

Here’s a switcharoo as an entry for today.

My greatest asset on the planet is the lovely and talented Janie Sjogren - we just celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary. I wake up each morning now with two spontaneous thoughts - “Jesus, thank you I have one more day… thank you for the indescribable gift of Janie…”

As you read here you will see why I use some of these adjectives. My life has been immensely shaped by her heart. She is the most remarkable person I have met. (No kidding, many have told me the same thing!) Since she doesn’t have a blog (yet) here is some of her heart…

Have you noticed how often the ‘right now’ thing God is up to happens on the way to what we thought was the plan? If we are open to noticing what he is about, a steady stream of adventures cross our paths.

New Friend - James C., 75 Years Young

“So you can read better now?”

This was a rhetorical question. I was just making conversation during the long silence. His eyes lit up - his demeanor said the rest.

It isn’t ‘cool’ for men to tear up, but he got a little misty - kind of surprising even though we had just met a couple of minutes before.

This happened in the Ybor City section of Tampa - an older, gentrified area with nice restaurants. Several dozen friends from CoastlandTampa were together to give away a few thousand bottles of water at a half marathon. What better excuse to connect with people, both runners and the crowd, than walking out a practical expression of Jesus’ love through bottles of water! Sometimes Jesus ‘cup of water’ - Matt. 25 - is literally what is needed at the moment.

This elderly black man was reading his newspaper as we walked by. What was unusual about him - he held the paper so close that his nose nearly touched the print!

“You look like me when I don’t wear my glasses!”

He asked me to repeat myself so I did. With that we had a conversation going. I happened to have an extra pair of unisex reading glasses on me. As he slipped them on, I couldn’t help thinking that they looked pretty good on my new friend.

Who Gained The Most? Easy Answer

Not too long ago I was intimidated at the notion of approaching a stranger with what was probably an inspired ‘notice.’ Today I couldn’t walk past James without addressing his obvious need. Honestly, the thought that came to me was, “How badly can this go? At worst, I will never see him again! At best, this could be the beginning of the dominoes toppling in his life until he becomes a Jesus follower… if he isn’t already in love with Jesus.” Either way there is nothing to lose.

It wasn’t long ago that this encounter would have gone differently.

A. I would have not noticed him in the least, OR

B. I would have had no idea how to connect with him.

I now realize God does his noticing through me. I walk past lots of people with needs - the noticing is not occurring with all who have needs - it is just with those being pointed out by God. It’s very simple really.

This I know - the invitation from on high is being picked up on by me clearly now. I remember now how I started out noticing when I first began following Jesus, but somehow I lost my ‘glasses’ along the way. I convinced myself that it is complex and difficult to read God’s eye chart. Not true at all!

This noticing thing is contagious and ironic. The one who picks up on what Jesus is up to is always touched / blessed more than the receiver of ‘glasses’ of any sort being handed out. Yes, they begin to see, but more importantly, the glasses giver remember how it is to see and how to notice our way into the lives of those God so loves…

Those around me are gaining courage as they see how uncomplex this all is. Those previously fearful of noticing - noticing myths bite the dust.

This is downright viral!

“Do I just look dumb to you or what? You give me your little bottle of water then expect me to show up at your church a few days later.  How lame is that?!”

These are the words of someone I ran into not long ago as we distributed several thousand bottles of water at a busy corner in the Tampa area.  The approach is simple:

‘Light turns red - ask ‘Which would you prefer, this or this?’ (right hand water or left hand water - we don’t ask the closed ended ‘Would you like some water?’ - that is lame - people usually laugh when we offer the left or right handed water!)  After people receive water just once they begin to call us the “Water People!”  There are worse things to be known for.

This is all based on the simple observation that a deposit of credibility is necessary before we have any expectation whatsoever of having credibility with people in our city.  ‘Words of love’ are hollow, perhaps absurd, to the culture of today without preceding actions of love that connect with people.  Those actions vary from place to place.

“Don’t Shoot - I’m Just The Piano Player!”

Unfortunately, more than a few have picked up on the above observation and have attempted to influence others by serving - in inauthentic ways.  You ask, “Who says they are inauthentic?”

These are the observations of numerous national newspaper reports.  As well, these are the rumblings of not-yet believers who feel insulted at what they sense is an attempt to ‘sell them’ on something.  I make it a practice of connecting with not-yet believers pretty much every day - it isn’t that difficult.  Buy the coffee for the person behind you at Starbucks.  If you have five or ten minutes an automatic conversation ensues.  I hear a lot of chatter about “Marketing” by serving these days.  (NOTE: It is interesting to me that of the literally several thousand I have bought coffee for, not one has ever asked me what I was trying to push on them or any notion remotely in that direction… less than five have ultimately turned me down of that huge group - they all lived in Iowa for some reason!)

I have been around the block in the church world enough in recent years to know this observation is right on.  Marketing is death in any form it takes - this is exponentially true for the church scene.  Seth Godin said it well in his book title recently, All Marketers Are Liars!  It is one thing to inform people.  Any attempt to ‘persuade’ people regarding your church without a willingness to establish a relationship for the long haul - is futility.  

(The guy who uttered the words at the beginning? We spoke for about five minutes. I confessed, “There is a big difference between me handing out a bottle of water and Jesus touching people’s needs or pain.” The light went on. He began to tear up. He asked, “So what time do you meet? Do you have a children’s program? My wife and I have been talking about church lately - funny we would cross paths.” This was a 180-degree shift. It helped that I had this conversation a time or two before…)

Engage, Don’t Panic  

This desperation thinking troubles me greatly. This is not what Jesus had in mind when he charged the Apostles to freely give what they had experienced firsthand for three years, 24/7 - to bring the ‘Logos’ to the ends of the Earth.  

The Logos?  “In the beginning was the Word (logos)… and the Word (logos) was God…”  We bring Jesus - in word, in deed, in Spirit.  To be clever is okay.  To see God’s presence branded upon hearts - ah, that lasts a lifetime, no matter how long the initial encounter. 

The goal we aspire to at the end of these weeks - as I wrote on Monday - is to become fairly professional.

To be perfectly clear - we are not grasping to become excellent. 

To quote the mohawk wearing prophet of the 80s, Mr. T - “I pity the fool who is reaching for excellence.”

Some may naively think God is into excellence.  You couldn’t be further from the truth.  “I’ll do my best for God” is not what excellence is about in the least. 

The “I’ll do my best…” line is another topic to open up (which could be great / could be something else - we’ll save that for another time). 

Excellence was a short-lived trend Tom Peters started with his mega-selling book of the mid-80s In Search of Excellence.  In church world years, that means the most advanced echo-ish thinkers and writers picked up on Peters about 7.5 years later… with the rest of the church getting it 15 years later.

Jesus has never been about the message of excellence.

Quite the contrary in fact.  Jesus had a ministry to those who were wrecked by those who in God’s name forced excellence upon all around. 
The gospels do have a repeating story of people being called to matters of excellence.

It is the "You’re not quite good enough" message that is often repeated by Temple leaders on page after page of the gospel accounts.  Their line to those who came to make a sacrifice was “Your dove is not quite good enough sacrifice material.  However today we happen to have a special on sacrifice doves.  Tell you what we can do for you - I don’t know what I’m saying - I must be out of my mind to talk this way - if my boss heard this crazy talk I’d be canned in a second… Yes this dove is somewhat more expensive than what you can afford (ten times more), but hey, it is expensive in order to please God… You need to have a perfect sacrifice.  That’s what sacrifice is all about… We are building our empire here… someone has to foot the bills… Doves don’t grow on trees you know” (Yes they do sit on branches in trees but that’s not the same).

CoastlandTampa has now done a couple of ‘Pre-Launch’ weeks.

We met with leaders only for a few weeks in the upstairs Great Room of a home on the far east side of Tampa, outside of our focal area. Our strategy has been to move from being off the radar screen, not even findable, to very visible in the I-4/I-75 area of Tampa.

In our four-week ‘Pre-Launch’ phase we have been meeting at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in our prime target area. This preparation has helped us to work through the bugs in our systems so that when we launch on February 10 we are ready for prime time. So far, so good!

It is becoming increasingly apparent that what we are being called to do here is marked by reproducibility.

As we have been planning things for quite some time now (see earlier this week – talking years) – I wondered how we were going to be able to encourage those who would follow after us in launches to come.

With limited up front cash, we are challenged to step up with creativity…

This past weekend was our super under the radar, super soft launch (think I’m developing new language for future planters).
Great vibe.  Went from just one or two moving parts on the “Model T” to another one or two.  The plan is to have a functional gathering that is not only fun, inspiring and safe (had that on week one) but is technically in sync with where we want to be – at least registering on the minimum matrix.

We are working on our Phase I launch.

This is challenging in that the funding we had prayed for has indeed been provided, but not in up front cash.  We prayed for at least a million in provision.  Yes, that has come in but to the pastors and interns who are working with the Coastland launch and establishment.  In fact, when all is tallied, that two plus year total is far more than that amount.
 
Our challenge now is the need for up front launching cash.
 
We were given an offering a couple of weeks ago that was well intentioned but the net of it was far less than I anticipated frankly.  I am grateful for every dollar provided.  I also think strategically.
 
Now we pray, we work, we serve.

Amazing (I use that word selectively – Americans over-use extreme words far too often, thus weakening them) gathering “things” are happening in the midst of those who are here.  I have been on missions trips where an apostolic atmosphere culture rests upon each person.  Sometimes that culture sustains upon a person for a time when they return home.
 
I find it unusual that for a large percentage of those who are arriving that this apostolic culture is upon us.  Stories to follow this week…