A few nights ago, Rex and Troy Farley got together to talk about Redwood Hills Church and Troy's new role as Children's Pastor. They invited me to hang out with them too! Turns out they needed a camera guy to document the event. I couldn't say no. Rex has had my camera for like a month, and I figured this was the only way I was getting it back! 

The epic conversations that took place are here for your viewing pleasure. Two things became very clear to me that night: Troy is going to be a great fit for our team as Children's Pastor. And I know very little about college football (you'll see what I mean in the last 90 seconds of this video). Enjoy!

Yesterday I had the privilege of hearing Francis Chan speak to a group of local pastors.  Francis told his story of recently leaving his very successful ministry (Cornerstone Church, Simi Valley, CA) and choosing to give the next few years of his life to living with the poor.  It was a deeply challenging talk centered on living a life that listens to God’s voice, takes courageous steps of faith and is willing to sacrifice many of the things that make life easier.  You can watch his brief story here.

A couple times, Francis made mention to “when I decided to leave the church”, and after a hearing more of his story I couldn’t help but think that Francis left his position in the church to actually join THE Church in a much deeper and biblical way.  He’s choosing to BE the church in a way that he feels God is calls Christians to…

Later in the day, I began to ponder our vision of Hearing…Being…Serving and then asked myself what needs to always be happening in my heart in order to live the kind of life where being the church is more important than the title I have in our church. It turns out that you don’t have to be a pastor to be challenged by these things as they should speak to everyone who strives to be a Christ-follower.

In a Jeff Foxworthy, “You know you’re a redneck if…” sort of way, I want to share some thoughts about how “you know you should leave the church if…” and ask you to prayerfully consider areas in life and faith where God might be nudging you to move into a faith of greater sacrifice and commitment to being disciples of Christ. 

Please keep in mind when I say “leave the church”, I mean depart from any lies, comforts or un-biblical beliefs that keep you from being the church in a way where nothing is more important than becoming disciples of Jesus and modeling the Kingdom of God in your everyday living.

You know you should leave the church if…

• Teachings are exclusive to your private growth and not for you to use in helping others grow.
• Church programs are the be-all in teaching our kids or teens about God.
• You believe people can’t truly belong to a church community unless he/she believes the right things.
• Church is more about where you go rather than the people you learn to live out your faith with.
• Evangelism is a “gift” only certain people have. Therefore, I don’t have a role in it.
• It’s not a real church until it has its own building.
• You’ve come to believe that serving and giving are optional.
• Someone told you your story doesn’t matter and you believed them.
• The grace of God is no longer central to your faith.

Grace and Peace

Rex

I have been blessed with many good and loyal friends in my life.  Friends are a gift from God that I try not to ever take advantage of as I’ve know times of real loneliness and what I’d like to think were seasons of unintentional isolation.  As I look at my life and think of all the close friendships I’ve been able to cultivate over the years, I’m actually pleasantly surprised at how multi-generational these friendships are.  What I mean by that is not all my friends are like me, in their mid-thirties with pre-school aged kids.  I’m a better man, husband, father and pastor because of my wide-range of friendships with teenagers, people in their 20’s, those I share the same age and life-stage with, and the many who are older and further down the road of life than me.

This morning I spent some time lying in bed thinking about this and suddenly realized that my friendships have had a big role in shaping my pastoral heart for leading a multi-generational church.  What brought this to my thinking was Donald Miller’s blog where he shares a challenge to young adults to be people who seek older friends.  I thought I’d share a few of Miller’s words that particularly stuck out to me(probably because I’m a pastor who often hears people wish aloud their desires to be part of a church that’s made up of people “their age”).

Are you looking for a church that has a lot of people who are your age so you can hang out? That’s fine, but try looking for one where most of the people have families and perhaps a little grey hair. Why? Because the sooner you can relate to their priorities, the sooner you’ll be ready for the next stage of life.

While Miller is challenging younger adults here, I think the challenge is fitting for those in their 50’s, 60’s and older.  Just as the youth can learn from being with families or those with a little grey hair, so can they be used by God to teach and model important things in the lives of the older people.  The point is, multi-generational churches work.  It’s simply not healthy to exist as a faith community that represents only one age group.  This is why whenever someone asks me what the ‘age’ of Redwood Hills is, I’m honest and say that we have a lot of young families with babies and pre-schoolers, but we’re blessed to also have those who recently graduated college and are still figuring out life’s direction as well as amazing people who have grown kids and now enjoying the great pleasure of being grandparents.

While my hope and goal is to always grow younger as a church, I will always try and lead in a way that makes Redwood Hills a faith community that finds its vibrancy in our diversity of age.  We all need each other to watch and learn from!  God never intended church to a segregated community in any way and that includes age.

Grace and Peace.
Rex

When I think back over the past four years and to some of the things that Redwood Hills has been able to do as a church I sometimes get a little emotional.  We’re a small community that has been able to make a global difference as we seek to know what God is doing around us and join him.
I think of the handful of houses in Ensenada, Mexico we built from the ground up.  I will never be the same since travelling with ten others to Swaziland, Africa to see how Jesus is changing lives in the most destitute area I’ve ever seen.  The local families who were too poor to provide food and gifts for their kids at Christmas time and RHC generously gave so kids would experience the same joy our own kids experience.  Three years of re-building in the St. Bernard Parish following hurricane Katrina.  I could go on, but you get the point.  We should be humbled as we reflect on how God has graciously used us!

This Sunday we have yet another opportunity to do our part in being world-changers.  As many of you know, we are packing up and moving our Sunday gathering to the Kirkland Marina Park where the band will be playing…fresh coffee and pastries will be enjoyed…a brief talk will be given to help us re-center our lives around the truth and grace of Jesus…we’ll witness a couple people being baptized right there in the lake and Lemon:Aid will be sold. 

I know what you’re thinking right now.  “Lemon:Aid will be sold?  Is Rex aware that he isn’t even spelling the word right?”
This is a much different kind of Lemon:Aid and the kids of Kid’s World will be selling it to help bring fresh water to the millions in Africa who have none.  Little Entrepreneurs making a big impact…

Redwood Hills is proud to partner with Blood:Water Mission this week and to engage our kids into God’s mission of being the church in tangible ways that we hope will shape their faith as well as change the lives of those who have so little. 

Join us this Sunday for a fun gathering under the marina gazebo…bring some friends with you and buy lots of lemonade.  See you @10am on Sunday!

Grace and Peace-
Rex