…for the rest of us

I’m reading a book right now that I’d recommend for anyone (Christian or not) called “10 Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe.”   It gets to the heart of why we are doing EastLake.  For years, many of you may have been turned off by church or religion because of false promises from the church, so you end up hating God in process.  The unfortunate part is that God never made many of those promises.  

When churches take a stand for issues outside of the Bible, or even worse, make up their own rules that attendees are pressured to live by, it constantly sets up people’s faith to be completely destroyed, especially when the church promises a certain result and the person never sees it happen.

I’m not arrogant enough to believe that EastLake will always “get it right,” but my passion and excitement for us is to build a place where anyone from any place in life will feel not only welcome at EastLake, but they can see and evaluate the plans God has for them without any “church-made” static - and meet great people in a great community!

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With that I am off to Cannon Beach, OR to celebrate 5 years of marriage with my beautiful wife.  :)

Dave Nelson, one of my advisors, just recently blogged about 10 things he wouldn’t change about his church plant.   This stuff is gold for those of us ready to build EastLake in Lawrence:

http://davenelsonsblog.com/2009/05/20/launching-a-church.aspx

http://davenelsonsblog.com/2009/05/22/launching-a-church–5-more-things-i-wouldnt-change.aspx

He’s gonna put up a blog soon about what he’d do differently.  The great thing about launching EastLake is that we have a lot of great people to learn from so we don’t have to worry about being original for the sake of being original.  We can take and use what has already been successful!

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Side note: I am in the last few weeks of development on Scribblenauts - this game is gonna be great!

When EastLake reaches over 150 attending, we will launch Growth Groups.  It will be our version of small groups that meet in trimesters.  They only last from 6-10 weeks at a time so you can sign up for a new group the following session and meet new people (and so that you don’t have to fake your own suicide to get out of a bad group.)

One type of growth group is called a “Go” Group that focuses on local or foreign missions of some sort - usually for only a week or two.  Right now at EastLake Seattle, I’ve decided to make EastLake Lawrence it’s own Go Group to see if it strikes a chord with more folks who want to come help us launch.  Only this “Go” Group could last 6-12 months (or maybe they’ll love Lawrence like we do and stay!)  

Even after simply announcing the group in ECC Seattle’s weekly e-mail, we have one person who already e-mailed me and is now praying about coming!  This is amazing!

I love how God uses people.

One of my advisors, Dave, is almost eight months into his church plant in Kenosha, WI. He just came from a refreshing trip to San Diego and he shared some things he learned while visiting other pastors out there. Simply reading what he wrote was refreshing and inspiring to me as we all get set to launch EastLake in Lawrence together. Please check it out if you have time:

http://davenelsonsblog.com/2009/04/29/learnings.aspx