Perry Noble on 2 Kings 7

• Instead of asking Him to build His church, we’ve asked Him to build our church
• It (the church) does not belong to anyone. (elders/deacons) It belongs to Him.
• Getting back to the church we need to wrestle with 3 questions
o Are we willing to embrace change?
• “If you think your poop doesn’t stink. God can’t use you.”
• “Why sit here until we die?”
• I believe every church in America is one or two changes away from doubling in size.
• Churches have been declining in size for the last 30 years. If it was our money, we would do something about it.
• If we reacted to the church as strongly as we reacted to the stock market we would see change.
• If you could do it like you’ve always done it, then He wouldn’t need to speak to us.
• Everyone ca look at other churches and see where they need to change, but can you look at your church and see where it needs to change.
• After being in a church for 5-10 years God asks us to change what we once thought was a good idea.
• We have several people who would give their lives for the grandchildren to see them come to Christ but would not be willing to change their style of music.
• Perry gets his idea that the church should change from the book of Acts. That makes this charismatic dude happy.
• Thomas taught a skeptics class in the early church.
• Peter taught a class on how to cuss and still be a Christian. Perry teaches that class at NewSpring.
• If what’s going on in your church is manageable it’s not a move of God. Moves of God can not be planned or managed.
• A move of God is messy and if you don’t want messy you don’t want a move of God.
• “NewSpring is the church where sinners go. “They’re all on staff.”
• 4 year old kid said to his parents…”I want to go back to the damn church.” Perry told the parents. “That’s passion. They hired him on the spot.”
• If you’re trying to tell people who can and can’t come to your church, you’re telling God He can’t show up.
• People will leave if we teach on giving. “Just the people who aren’t giving.”
• Perry remembers counting money in the closet of the Fine Arts building at Anderson College.
• He would call people who missed and ask if they wanted to double up on their tithes before he asked if they were sick.
• If it’s God’s will, it’s His bill.
• If you’re a pastor and want to see your church take off, you need to be less involved in the day to day of your church.
• A pastor’s job as related to youth ministry is to fund it.
• We take better care of our senior adults then our money.
• People ask why they have youth. “We spend money on them. Everyone else is.”
• We’ve got to get out of the business of competing with one another and get in the business of completing each other.
• Question 2
o Are we willing to work?
• Our attitude should be that we’re willing to do whatever He asks us to.
• Instead of asking for permission we should place ourselves in submission.
• Working in a church
o Investigate the obvious
• Is there anything going on in your church that you wouldn’t want be a part of if you weren’t getting paid? Is there anything that you’re manufacturing energy for?
• Is there any staff member or volunteer that isn’t getting it done? Sometimes God calls us to hurt people’s feelings. “Brood of vipers.”
• Do you have anyone on stage that can’t sing?
• Have a group of people around you that will keep it real.
o Ignore the jackass
• In the greek jackass is translated “blogger”
• 2 types of jackasses
• the person that takes shots at you without ever attending your church. God calls his church to be above the fray and not to be intimidated by the “jackasses”
• when a move of God is bringing people to Christ who would rather attack it, God or Satan?
• The 2nd jackass is the person who always wants to go “deeper”. “Your only as deep the last person you served.”
• We want more worship. You have 6 other days.
• John Maxwell…”Christians are educated beyond the level of obedience”
• Question 3
o Are we willing to reach the world?
o Overplayed terms
• Contemporary—our pastor wears a sweater vest and we sing songs that makes Him seem like he buys
• Blended—no one in our church possesses a set and will declare where we stand. In an effort to keep everyone happy we reach no one.
• Missional—it’s like a fish saying “I like water. I like water.” We should be missional. Definition—nobody showing up.
• Emergent—we’re a bunch of spoiled church kids who have a problem with authority; included the authority of scripture. We’ve sided with Satan by questioning the word of God and hell will be more crowded because of it.

• Jesus didn’t die so we could form holy huddles in a church to discuss terms while the world around us is dying and going to hell.
• God didn’t call the church to condemn the city, He called us to save our cities.
• “The reason I’m obsessed with numbers because I was one of the numbers.”
• It’s amazing how the church will trust the Holy Spirit for salvation, but not after salvation.

A part of me always wants to bring something new and exciting to the table. I’m always wanting to be fresh and current. But the thought hit me today that sometimes I don’t need to change the world. I just need to create environments where people can connect to God in worship. And sometimes that means using the K.I.S.S. method.

Here’s what brought this home for me today. I’m heading back to VA this afternoon to lead worship at their annual Men’s Advance. I am co-leading with my friend Matt Ruckel who took over when I left. Matt and I chose the sets for the weekend and chose songs everyone knows. Familiar. Easy. Simple.

Besides, I’m really not there to impress anyone with my gifts, right? I’m supposed to be there to impress on them the greatness of God. So I’m content this weekend to go in and do older songs and try and provide worship that’s like a pair of old, comfy slippers.

Here’s this week’s sermon graphic. Is this something I should continue? Not sure if it’s helpful to anyone….

Anyway, I threw this one together yesterday afternoon with another HT to SXC. Feel free to use and pass along.

I’m trying out Intense Debate to manage my comments from this point forward. While I will be moving to wordpress soon, this is the first step in stepping it up on the blogosphere for me. It’s a fun way to keep track of all of your comments in one spot. You can also add video, youtube videos, smileys and polls to your comments. Good stuff.

Click on the comment line and leave a comment and help me test this out.

Thanks.

I love twitter and facebook. I really dig the idea that I can connect to other folks around the country/planet and get to know them. I’ve shared phone conversations/coffee/lunch/hang out time/halo/iChat/tokbox with people I either a) wouldn’t met otherwise or b) lost touch with, all because of the new and beautiful world of social networking.

But, some (if not most) of the people I’m called to serve in the local church setting don’t get it.

There’s even some that don’t like it.

Think it’s a waste of time.

Not interested in connecting over facebook/email/twitter.

Folks that in my social networking world wouldn’t be “cool”.

People who are just as much in need of life change and someone to love them where they are as all my connected friends. People who need friends and go about sharing life in a totally different way than I do.

I really would love it if everyone was like me and communicated and shared life in the same way. But then again, wouldn’t that make life boring?

I’m trying to figure this out because, at the end of the day, what matters to me is seeing people connected to and embraced by a God who loves them whether they’re “plugged in” or not.

How do you connect with “offline people”? You can talk about them freely because they’ll never read this anyway.