Faith

Well the Steward family is moving into another big leap in our journey! Over the past two years we have been in Southern California learning, volunteering and connecting with the amazing people and staff at Saddleback Church. We have been so blessed, mentored and cared for here by this church family that is it impossible to put into words. The hardest part in following God in this next move will be all the good friends we won’t be able to see as often as we would like (well that and the beautiful beaches and constant 72 degree weather).

Mandy and I both felt that 2008 would be the year that I found a “fit” in a church - and he has come through big time. A little over a month ago my good friend John pointed out a job posting for LifeChurch.tv titled: Online Community Organizer. Later, when I read the description of what LifeChurch.tv was looking for to Mandy we both agreed that this position seemed like a perfect fit for what God has been developing in me over the past two years - so I applied.

Since then it has been a fun whirlwind as we started the process of interviewing for the position. This last weekend we flew out to see LifeChurch.tv and the Internet Campus/Digerati team, and for a final round of interviews. This week were thrilled to accept the position of Online Community Pastor with LifeChurch.tv, serving on their Internet Campus/Digerati team.

Needless to say we are humbled just for the opportunity to be around the amazing talent and the hearts of the people at LifeChurch.tv. And I can accurately say this is a dream job on the dream team. The more we saw this weekend the more we were blown away by the faith and talent of the people there, and the vision they have.

So, pray for us as we take another big plunge in this journey. We have to get our house ready so it can start a schedule of showing to be re-leased, we need to settle up all the details here and we hope to be in Oklahoma by beginning of September!

This is a defining moment in the ministry of 722, but I am wildly impressed by their hearts and that they followed through on what they heard God telling them. It takes a lot of guts to listen to God, instead of sticking to the way things have always gone - especially when it has been going good. Keep your eyes on 722, God is up to great things there.

Great Park Church - How to Grow Spiritually - June 22 2008 from Tony Steward on Vimeo.

My good friend Eric Busby is planting a church (Great Park Church) here in Irvine, California. It is going to be centered in the Great Park of Orange county which is still getting ready to launch, but will turn into the center of Orange County when it is finished. The word is that it will be the California version of New York’s Central Park.

Anyways, I took my Sony Camcorder with me as I always do and decided to record the service. It is shaky at times and I’m sure the audio could use some help - but it was a really great service with both the worship by Sheena and the preaching by Eric. Check out the video and be blessed!

I had a chance to connect with my new friends back from the Purpose Driven Network Summit a few weeks ago, Carlos Whittaker and DJ Chuang today at the Purpose Driven Worship Conference. (I’m a member of Saddleback Church, so I get to hang with these guys when they come out to conferences - love it!)

Anyways, Carlos was a part of two seminars today with Rich Kirkpatrick today speaking about Social Media in the context of church leadership and ministry. I owe twitter the thanks for letting me know that was going on today - and I was able to get over there and be apart of those conversations. Coming away from it there are three things I noticed:

1. I am hungry to share what I have been learning about Social Media and its impact on church strategy, communications and pastoral practice
2. I have a lot to learn in the practical application of consistently building a valuable connection to people online, to commit to conversations and not just tools
3. I need to step up my game in regards to excellence and competence for my own blogs, videos and podcasts just for the development of myself.

SO, I am going to be doing some thinking and consolidating of all the stuff I am a part of online, and then being a better online participant along with all of you!

In that regard, what do YOU think of online community and the blogging, video, podcasting world that is emerging?

You have permission. You have all the permission you need to grow, learn, get better, and be wildly curious. Many of your managers, bosses and CEOs are trying to keep you quiet and less skilled because they are threatened by you. They want to stay “king of the hill”, but to do so they have to say things like “you aren’t paid to think”, they have to be overly critcial and condescending and they need to take credit for your ideas.

And they do have something to fear. The command and control “boomer” world they grew up knowing and studying is dying very quickly in both its value and effectiveness. The “human voice” is making a comeback through realities like the internet, social networking, blogs and micro-media. You’ve grown up in this world, you are tired of the shams, corporate messaging and stupid advertisements.

In fact you’ve grown up with an immunity to interruption, stupid messaging and anything not connected to reality (unauthentic). You struggle to respect leaders that “spin” (which is to us lying), and you have an instant abiliaty to tell whethere there is a real human voice or a marketing message.

I was recently in church when a prominent guest preacher was delivering the message. He was quite good, his points were solid and he was very effective at connecting to the congregation. Then at the conlusion of the service it was announced that the preachers brand new book, of the same title and topic as the message he gave, would be available at the back and he would be signing autographs.

To the boomers in the room this didn’t raise a red flag, in fact they were even more excited. I was sick to my stomach. What I thought was a real message from an authentic human voice was really just marketing copy expertly delivered through preachers clothing. All credibility of what was said was completely lost, because it was primarily said to promote a stupid book.

You have permission for things like that to raise a red flag in your heart and mind. Your allowed to demand an authentic person, especially from the pulpit of your church. When you see “spin”, “to good to be true” presented to you as the real thing, you’re allowed to mock it and call it what it is - a lie and a falsehood.

You have persmission to be a person; as random, real, mysterious, passionate and spiritual as that really is.

{This rant was inspired by the Cluetrain Manifesto and the writings of author Seth Godin.}

John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

• Do we ask Jesus for the right things? What I mean is do we ask him things based on who he is, or based upon what we want? Knowing Jesus isn’t a “have to” of the Christian Religion, with required prayers and bible readings to know all the “typical” answers. Knowing Jesus, and finding comfort in the truth of who he is, brings us to all the right questions. Are we asking the right questions?

John 4:13 -14 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

• What do you thirst for? Many times when I get thirsty I start to crave a Coke or Pepsi. I don’t know if it is the flavor, if it is what I’m used to, or if it is a likely addiction to processed sugars and caffeine. But drinking a Coke or Pepsi is exactly the wrong thing for me to drink if my goal is to quench my thirst. In our lives what are were are we dry and thirsty for at a deep level - and what are we using as the Coke and Pepsi to try and cover it up? It may taste good, but there is not a rightness in how it satisfies.

John 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

• What does it mean to worship God in spirit and truth? My logical brain first noticed that in the previous verse (23) Jesus calls the true worshipers the ones that worship in both spirit and truth. Not spirit sometimes and truth sometimes - but always in their combination. So does “spirit” mean inspired and with hearts fully open and “truth” mean in right doctrine and full engagement of our mind? How do we leave one or the other out? I have seen worship full of spirit but lacking substance and focusing on the experience. And I have seen worship that was very intellectual but “dead” and stale.

There is an incredible deal of comfort in being the same. In fact, sameness makes life so much easier, at the same time it is making it boring. I guess this is just a short post to have you take a moment of reflection on what you are aiming for in regards to … well everything.

• Are you trying to exercise your faith in the same way as everyone else?
• Do you make an effort to dress the same as everyone around you?
• Music and Movie preferences?
• Do you bend to the pressure on political opinion as those you hang out with?

I think the dangers of “sameness” are rampant in the different areas of our lives. It is the smothering and oppressive aims of people trying to make everyone the “same” that are behind wars, racism and religious legalism. Diversity is the breath and color of life.

Growing up I would have thought that diversity only spoke to the racial make up of a community. But it is much more individual than that, even though after living in california for almost two years the idea of living somewhere that is only made up of white people sounds tremendously boring. And that leads into the biggest danger of being the “same”, which is that you lose yourself.

When you are spending your time aiming at being the best and most complete “you”, and instead are looking at just trying to “fit in” and be “normal” you start to lose who you are. The day will come when you realize most of your choices are just what you think someone else would chose. You don’t know how you would dress if it was just up to you. You don’t know what kind of work you would want to do if it was just up to you. You don’t know what you really believe for yourself, because you’ve been to busy trying to be accepted to see what you’ve been feed.

This isn’t nearly as rebellious of a post as it would seem. This has been a huge part of my journey over the past 2 years, and discovering who God has made me to be - not being what people are comfortable with. There is a profound difference for me and I imagine with you. I don’t want to sound all “woo-woo” and suggest that you “find yourself”, but it is so easy to start centering all your little and big decisions on others that there does need to be an effort on your part to just be you. Whether you is the CEO of a company, the mother of your children, the musician, the christian, the country-music lover, the guy with the weird hair-cut, the girl that tries out for the football team or the pastor with tatoos - it is important to be comfortable in your own skin.

This post was inspired by Seth Godin’s post on how a copyeditor, in doing her job, completely ruined the writing he sent her. She killed the personality, the quirkiness elements of the writing that made it stand out. She made it fit in, instead of letting it be the round peg that catches the attention of a square world.

Almost everything you do has some sort of copyediting filter. It might be the legal eagle or the graphic supervisor or the customer service police. They’re excellent at making round things fit perfectly through round holes.

Boring and ignored is fine with them, because no one complains.

[From Seth's Blog: Sucking all the juice out]

Details are here!