daveferguson.org

Let Jon Know You Miss Him Blogging!

So Jon was at my house tonight for my daughter Amy's birthday.  I told him that everyone was really missing him not blogging.  He has not posted anything on his blog since May 8th.  That is over two months ago!  Then Jon said, "there certainly has not been any public outcry for me to start blogging again!" 

What?  No public outcry?  So I want to be the first to say, "Jon, we want you start blogging again!!!"  If you are with me and you want Jon to start posting again either send him an e-mail OR post a comment on this blog OR post a comment on Jon's blog.  C'mon public, "WE WANT JON!  WE WANT JON!  WE WANT JON!" 

(He's gonna kill me!)

Big Idea & Big World!

Since Jon, Eric and I wrote The BIG IDEA last year the book has gone through four printings and has been translated and published into Korean.  One of the cool things is when we hear from church leaders in other parts of the world that are implementing The BIG IDEA.  I got this note of affirmation and some questions today from a leader in Sao Paulo, Brazil:  "I went to a conference last June where I found your amazing book. This is exactly what I've been trying to do the last couple years in my church, actually there is also the interest of translating this book to Portuguese...I am reading the last chapter of it and it's simply awesome, I am too excited about it!" it's just very cool!

Good at Blogging, Great at Leading

We had Scott Hodge of Orchard Valley Community Church come over and speak at our all-staff meeting.  Scott is known to a lot of people because of his blogging, but he is an even better leader than he is blogger.  Scott tells the remarkable and painful of story of how he transitioned the church in a Leadership Journal article titled,  Sharp Curve Ahead.  Scott took an 80 year old church and saw it grow from a a couple hundred people to around a thousand people in the last few years.  Since COMMUNITY has campuses that are similar sizes we thought it would be good for them to hear from Scott.  He did a great job not only telling his story, but also giving us some practical ideas about how to make the necessary changes to grow.  Thanks Scott!

"It's not a good night to be an atheist."

If you are a baseball fan then you watched Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers set a new single round record with 28 homers in the first round of Home Run Derby.  Much more amazing is Josh Hamilton's story of how God saved him from a life of drugs and alcohol that almost ruined him.  He said,  "When I get the urge to have a drink or do something I'm not supposed to do, I think about what a hypocrite I would be to my Christianity and my sobriety." He continued, "My wife told me in the midst of my addiction that God was going to let me get back to baseball." Then Josh Hamilton added, "Being able to share my story, that's what it's all about."   If you want to read more about his story here is one version in the Dallas News.  My favorite line of the night was from one of the ESPN announcers while Hamilton was clobbering homer after homer out of Yankee Stadium, "It's not a good night to be an atheist."

New Website with Cool New Features!

I am totally pumped about the new COMMUNITY website!  Before I give you a few cool new features to check out let me give you a few reasons why our new and improved website is so important to the mission of "helping people find their way back to God".  First, according to the recent focus groups we had conducted 100% (that is everyone!) who was new to COMMUNITY checked out our website first before coming!  This is a critical tool for outreach.  Second, we recently wanted to put together a photography team and we advertised it only on the website and we now have a team of fourteen photographers who started contributing.  The best way to get people involved is via our website.  Finally, it is now the place to get the latest all-church news or news about your COMMUNITY campus.  OK, enough of that.  Here are a several new cool features to check out:

VIDEO FAQs:
You will get to meet Jeff, who is now the host of our web site. If you go to the homepage, you’ll see him walk on. Or you can just navigate to the About Us section. In addition to the preset questions he answers, you can also ask your own question which will generate a random (and funny although useless) answer. Try it!

SMALL GROUP FINDER:
Using Google Maps, you can now search and browse all COMMUNITY adult small groups using an interactive map. The tool is very cool, even if you’re already in a small group! Check it out!

MEDIA PAGE:
The media page has the most recent streaming videos from adults, students and kids.  It includes our teaching team videos and our other award-winning videos that go along with the BIG IDEA.  If you haven't already seen this feature you will love it.  Try not to spend all day there! 

STORIES OF LIFE CHANGE:
Check out the Stories of Life Change section. We have some truly great stories on video that I've watched multiple times.  We also have a place where people can post their own life changing stories.  We have already  started receiving stories from people through the web site...leave yours!

NEWS & EVENTS:
This is the currently the most visited part of our website.  This is where you can find out about news that applies to all of COMMUNITY or get the latest from your campus.  This is also the place where we have links to all our staff blog so you can get the latest rant or ramble from our smart and funny staff!

There is a lot more stuff than I have in this post, but you will have to find it for yourself.  Congrats to Tom Greever on doing a great job with leading the re-design of the new website.  Not only is the new website very cool, it is also helping people find their way back to God!

Nelson Mandela: 8 Secrets of Leadership

I got my most recent issue of Time magazine yesterday and on the cover was a picture of Nelson Mandela and it was titled, The Secrets of Leadership: 8 Lessons from one history's icons.  The article was written by his long time biographer Richard Stengel, who seems to know him like a friend.  Some of the lessons were not the usual leadership lessons that you might read in a book by a business professor, and others were very predictable.  However, the most interesting part is how tactical he was in his approach to leadership and the tactics that illustrate these leadership lessons.  To get all that you need to read the article.  Here is the summary of the lessons from a leader who led in such a way as to bring about real transformation:

1. COURAGE IS NOT THE ABSENCE OF FEAR - IT'S INSPIRING OTHERS TO MOVE BEYOND IT.
2. LEAD FROM THE FRONT - BUT DON'T LEAVE YOUR BASE BEHIND.
3. LEAD FROM THE BACK - AND LET OTHERS BELIEVE THEY ARE IN FRONT.
4. KNOW YOUR ENEMY - AND LEARN ABOUT HIS FAVORITE SPORT.
5. KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE - AND YOUR RIVALS EVEN CLOSER.
6. APPEARANCES MATTER - AND REMEMBER TO SMILE.
7. NOTHING IS BLACK AND WHITE.
8. QUITTING IS LEADING TOO.

Time also has a narrated photo essay:  Modern Hero.  It is terrific and shows us how Mandela inspires us.  And for extra credit you can take a look at  The Making of a Leader, an additional article by Richard Stengel on Nelson Mandela.

NOC Featured Session: Decisions vs. Disciples

I'm pretty excited about some of the speaking opportunities that I am getting over the next 6 months.  Most of my speaking focuses on topics of great passion: becoming a reproducing church (multi-site & church planting), leadership, innovation or The BIG IDEA. 

However, in November I'm going to be doing a Featured Sessions at the National Outreach Convention on a different topic that is a growing passion of mine.  I'll be speaking on Decisions vs. Disciples and here is a brief description of my session: "If we are serious about accomplishing the mission of Jesus we can no longer be satisfied with “raise your hand”, “sign a card” or “walk the aisle” decisions. Every church and leader that is on mission with God sees the need to move people toward becoming Christ Followers who love God, love God’s people and love God’s world. In this workshop you will make three discoveries: 1. a process for how to develop followers of Jesus; 2. a metric that allows church leaders to track individuals and a church's spiritual development; 3. a church that can accomplish the mission of Jesus." 

The National Outreach Convention is November 5-7 in San Diego, California.  It is a great place to connect with other leaders and once again they've put together a great line-up of speakers.  If you decide to come to the NOC check out my session.

"5 AM"

I had an impromptu conversation with a church leader who has traveled extensively in China.  While in China he has trained leaders of an underground church of over 400,000 people. He told me that he is humbled at the opportunity to train these leaders and is very careful with everything he says fearing that he might say something that would go against the amazing things that God is doing. 

But the most interesting thing he told me was this:  "Dave, where ever I go in China and I see this rapid reproduction and amazing growth in the church I always ask them 'what is the secret?...why is it happening here?' And they always have the same response:  '5 AM'." I asked him, "5 AM?  What does that mean?"  He filled me in, "5 AM is the time that every believer gets up in the morning for prayer."

Denver & Mile High Orchestra at COMMUNITY!

Denver and the Mile High Orchestra will be at COMMUNITY in Naperville on Sunday, July 13, performing at 7:00 p.m.  It will be a great concert and a cool opportunity for the us to host an exceptionally talented group.  They will be performing a lot of the songs they performed on Fox’s Next Great American Band.  If you want a quick preview of what you can expect click HERE.  Or you can purchase your tickets by clicking HERE. 

They will also be doing 3 clinics: jazz improvisation, instrumental performance and composition/arranging/production starting at 2 o’clock which is a huge win for our music arts team and contributors.  The classes are FREE with the purchase of a ticket for the evening performance.  A reservation is required by calling 630-388-5104.

Five Components for Catalyzing A Movement

Twice a year our NewThing Lead Pastors get together to just to hang out and think strategically about catalyzing a movement of reproducing churches. In May they all came to COMMUNITY in Chicago and we had a lot of fun; but during the fun we talked about just this question:  "what will it take to catalyze a movement?"  Everyone had their opinions.  We even had the input of Alan Hirsch (who has much to say about this topic in his book Forgotten Ways).  But it's been a few weeks since that conversation and it seems that there are at least five components needed to catalyze a movement:

SHARED DREAM
We believe God has a dream of all people finding their way back to Him.  That is our dream too!  Jesus articulated that dream in Acts 1:8 when he said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Toward that dream we strategically think about impacting 1 billion people.  1 billion is 17% of the world’s population; a tipping point for changing any size group.  So, if we can reach 17% of the world, we believe God’s dream for this planet will be fulfilled!  For this dream to be fulfilled it will take approximately two million Lead Pastors; two hundred Network Leaders and two thousand Movement Leaders.  I know these seem like just big numbers, and somewhat overwhelming – but it always starts with a dream.

COMMON IDEOLOGY
Our dream comes from Jesus (Acts 1:8), and our ideology comes from the Apostle Paul.  Paul is explaining to a young church planter, Timothy how to accomplish this big dream and he says, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others” (II Timothy 2:2).  He explains that the strategy for accomplish Jesus big dream is to start small by continually reproducing.  Paul lays out multiple generations of reproduction:  1. Paul – Timothy; 2. Timothy – reliable men; 3. reliable men – others.  So the common ideology we share is helping people find their way back to God by reproducing at all levels.

APOSTOLIC LEADERSHIP
Like Paul, it will be apostolic leaders that will start new communities of Christ Followers and pass along the values that bring about a movement of reproducing churches.  There are three primary functions of an Apostolic Leader.

1. The Apostolic leader will create and empower others to create new communities of Christ Followers.
2. The Apostolic leader will embed the ideology and values of the gospel into these new communities of Christ Followers.
3. The Apostolic leader will guard the ideology and values of the gospel in these new communities of Christ Followers.

GENUINE COMMUNITY
These communities of Christ Followers will not be merely lifestyle enclaves that exist to further the betterment of the life of the community and their own lives.  These communities will be a “communitas” (community with a cause); a coming together of Christ Followers who are willing to trade their life to accomplish the dream of God by following Jesus.

DECENTRALIZED REPRODUCTION
Jesus dream was not about staying in Jerusalem; it was about going to “the ends of the earth."   Paul’s ideology was not about keeping the gospel for yourself, but reproducing it over and over and over again in others.  The dream and the ideology demand decentralized reproduction of genuine community led by apostolic leaders.

I would love to hear your thoughts on how to catalyze a movement!  Leave me a comment and let me know any of your thinking or experiences so we can fulfill God’s dream and help all people find their way back to Him!

Weekend Party Continues with a White Sox Game!

Got four great seats given to me for the Sox game so the boys and I (plus Bobby) continued the weekend party and went to see the Sox and the A's.  The Sox came out winners 6-1.  Great game, great time and great post-game fireworks too!

Freedom Four Mile, Family and REO on the 4th!

Had a great day on the fourth!  Josh, myself and Caleb (in picture) started our day by running the Freedom Four Mile.  Josh was holding back (advice from his cross country coach) and still ran it under 25 minutes and was among the top finishers among 900 runners.  This was Caleb (10) first race, so we ran the whole thing together and we finished without stopping at 37:15.  Not bad for his first race.  After the race we went over to Jon's house for a brunch.  Jon and Lisa always do a great job with this event.  After that we headed over to Ribfest for ribs and join about 75,000 other people rocking out to REO Speedwagon.  The concert was both fun and funny!  All in all it was a great fourth of July!

Far From God to Campus Pastor!

Scott Knollenberg is a guy who found his way back to God at COMMUNITY.  Scott is also our brand new Campus Pastor at our Romeoville Campus.  I asked Scott to share his story with you.  Here it is in Scott’s words:

“In 1998, I was far from God and had just relocated to Romeoville.  I was one of the first residents to move into the HighPoint Community, a new residential development built by 3 partners: HighPoint Apartments, Institute for Community, and Community Christian Church.  Three months after moving in I was playing sand volleyball when I met a guy named Troy McMahon.  After spending 2 weeks trying to figure out who this “Troy guy” was, I discovered he was the Campus Pastor of the Romeoville Campus that was launching in the new Friendship Center.  Despite my past views of church people and being far from God, I made a huge step to attend my first CCC service because I felt HighPoint and its new church was a “cool place with cool leadership”.

Meanwhile, I was finishing up graduate school and advancing my career with Caterpillar.  But God was changing me.  While interviewing for a dream job at Caterpillar world headquarters, I shockingly declined the promotion explaining I could not leave my church in Romeoville and relocate.  On the drive home, I called Troy and asked him to baptize me.  I felt it was finally the right time because this was the first major decision I had ever made that was not about building my own personal kingdom.  Two years later, I left the corporate marketplace and joined CCC staff first as the Kids’ City Director and now I will be the Campus Pastor.  Because of CCC, IFC and HighPoint, I have accepted Jesus and have become a better husband to Michelle and father to my daughter, Chloe Grace.  I’m excited to help make COMMUNITY-Romeoville the world model at reaching and building strong families.  That’s what this place did for my family and there are many more “Scotts” out there in this community who are far from God.”

That is sooo cool!  Scott's story embodies what we want to see happen in the lives of people over and over and over again.  10 years ago Scott was far from God and today he is leading a campus with hundreds of people who are accomplishing the Jesus mission!

Little League All-City Playoffs Begin!

If I wasn't doing what I do for a living I would would be coaching.  I love sports; love working kids and I love what sports can teach them.  Our little league team won it's last five games and earned a second seed in the All-City Playoffs.  This is a picture of Caleb at bat in his last regular season game and in the background is me in the dugout.

Eating Shark!

I love Chicago!  One of the Chicago summer events that I love most is Taste of Chicago. We took the whole gang to the Taste yesterday and we tried a little bit of everything.  Here is Sue eating some shark.  It tastes like chicken...just not as good.

Pownce? Anybody Using It?

I'm always interested in new technology.  I'm totally loving Twitter, facebook and blogging. But is anyone using Pownce? And if you are using it; how are you using it?

Truthfulness Makes Life Work!

This series from the book of Proverbs, Making Life Work is one of my favorites in a long time!  The feedback we have been getting from the people of CCC has been outstanding.  This weekend we discussed how Truthfulness Makes Life Work and focused on Proverbs 27:6, "faithful are the wounds of a friend".  I had one person who came up to me after a service who told me that he was going tell "the truth in love" to his dad about a destructive behavior pattern that had gone on for forty years.  I had another person tell me that they were going to have a truth-telling conversation with someone involved in an affair and on the verge of divorce.  That was just a couple of the many conversations I had with people this weekend.  I love how the people of CCC are willing to hear the wisdom of God and then take action on it!  Good stuff.  If you want to watch this message, click HERE.
 

Returning the Gift To A Cub Fan...

After the Sox finished off the Cubs three straight at US Cellular I got in my car and I left this at the door of the Cub fan who brought it to my house last Sunday night.  It turns out that it belonged to him after all!  :)

So, this is for all you Cub fans that e-mailed me; sent me tweets through Twitter and messages through facebook!