Forty years ago – I remember it well!

That is me pictured above. Yes, I had hair once!

Forty years ago on May 6, 1972 I attended a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting in Fort Dodge, IA, which was  two hours away from my remote little farm town of Paullina.

I went but I didn’t go to meet Jesus. In fact, I sat as far back in the room as one could sit, and leaned my chair against the back wall.That night, a professional football player from the New York Jets traveled to Central Iowa to talk to a bunch of white kids about his personal faith in Jesus Christ. Winston Hill was a an offensive lineman in the Joe Namath era and was the largest black man I had ever seen (maybe the first black man) ; even from the back of the room his Afro was as big as a basketball and his smile radiated the room.

I don’t remember what he said; I didn’t raise my hand or go forward or recite the sinner’s prayer, but that night by the grace of God, a broken and contrite hearted young man received soul surgery and as John Wesley said on the night he was born again, “My heart was strangely warmed.” I take no credit for my conversion,God did it all. He prepared my heart to hear a message of unconditional love provided by Jesus Christ through His work on the cross. I merely opened my heart and let His love and forgiveness flood in.

He began a work in my life that has gone on for 40 years and I am asking Him for forty more years to serve Him. I am praying that it will be His encore presentation in my life and that the best has been saved for last.

Once a Month Church

That is our church in the background. It is also a hotel, The Waterfront Inn, smack in the middle of The Villages. We rent it once a month for the preview services of Live Oaks Community Church.  We pay a hefty fee to rent it but the plan has worked thus far. Everyone knows where this landmark is and it provides a neutral setting which is convenient for visitors who don’t want to get trapped somewhere. They know hotels have lots of exits. We have filled the hotel ballroom with 100 people in our previous two services and they were able to get there on their golf carts. And the generosity of those attending allowed us to cover the cost of renting the room. Our third Preview service is in two days on April 22 so pray for more visitors.

We have advertised, “You are invited to Once A Month Church (for a while)” and it has been catchy. Many have said with a wry smile, “We like the sounds of “Once a Month Church; that works in our schedule.”  Of course the “for a while” means that when we have a strong enough core group, we will begin meeting weekly. But until then, it is “Once a Month Church.”  It was quite humorous the first Sunday. I became confused and tongue tied when trying to explain that their offering could be made out to our church but we were operating under the tax exempt umbrella of our district office. What came out was that their gifts were “tax reimbursable,” when I meant to say “tax deductible.”  So what’s not to like about this new church? You go to church once a month and you get your money back.  No wonder we are growing!

Second Half Influence (A Blog from TJ Addington)

I wanted to repost this 1/15/12 blog from my EFCA colleague, TJ Addington. “Well said Tim!”

 

For those who care about influence for the gospel, life is divided into two parts. Our own influence through our life and work and in the second half of life, our intentional mentoring of the next generation of influencers who will carry the baton to the next generation. It is Paul and Timothy and 2 Timothy 2:2. 

A wonderful example is John R W Stott whose world wide influence in my parents generation is tough to beat. Yet for many years prior to his death his primary focus was that of raising up the next generation of Christian leaders. He intentionally multiplied himself by giving himself away and focused less on his personal impact on society and more on the impact that the next generation would make. In doing so his legacy and influence live on in a powerful way. 

This requires a Kingdom heart that is focused not on one’s own accolades but on empowering others who will will multiply one’s Kingdom influence. It is about the Kingdom, not us. It is about leaving aliving legacy in the lives we have influenced who will carry on our work when we are gone. I suspect that there will be many behind the scenes who will receive greater rewards in heaven than many big names whose focus was on their own ministry and legacy rather than on leaving aliving legacy through others. 

This applies to wives who mentor the next generation of wives, husbands who mentor and raise up the next generation of Godly husbands, Christian leaders who invest themselves in the next generation of leaders … anyone who is investing their lives in passing the baton to others who may actually have far more influence than we ever did. 

For Christian leaders, I am convinced that their success is best measured not by what happened while they were in leadership but by what happens when they are gone! Was there stewardship of the ministry about them or the ministry? If the latter they invested significant time and effort into the lives of the next generation of leaders. If the former, they often did not. 

If you are post fifty, who are you investing in? Who are you raising up to take your place behind you? That investment may well be your greatest influence and legacy as you multiply yourself in the lives of others. It is a quiet, behind the scenes work that will seldom be seen but its impact can be profound. It is in giving ourselves away that we have our greatest impact.

 

POSTED BY T.J. ADDINGTON AT 1:00 AM 

LABELS: LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT, LEGACY, MENTORING, YOUNG LEADERS

Follow Me – Literally

I got a chuckle out of the recent cartoon portraying Jesus’ calling Peter and saying, “No I’m not talking about Twitter, I literally want you to follow me.”  Following isn’t always easy and doesn’t always make sense. My wife will attest to a lifetime of listening for the command of God and following when it didn’t make sense. We have experienced downward mobility professionally as we have taken new ministry assignments. Multiple times we have left family and financial stability for the sake of the cause.

Here we go again! We are raising financial support, starting a new church with one other couple and moving away from our resort area home, our children and our granddaughter. Yet we sense that we have been prepared our whole lives for this next assignment. God has prepared us with our spiritual gifts, our acquired skills, our personalities, our passions, our ministry experiences and our lessons learned in the past about trusting God when moving into to new time zones.  We have been blessed with an address book full of family and friends who have walked parts of this journey with us, prayed with us and for us. God has been so faithful and we will trust Him again as we move to The Villages, Florida in just one week.

Maybe you think I just “churched up” our situation a bit. After all, we are moving away from the frigid upper midwest and moving to a place with 550 holes of golf accessible by the golf cart in my garage. I wanted full disclosure on this move!  For the record we moved north last winter to Minneapolis and we are staying in central Florida 12 months of the year. I hear the summer is HOT AND HUMID. We will compare that to our last assignment in Nanning, China in 2010 – couldn’t be more tropical than that!!

All that said, we are following the Lord’s call to the best of our ability. One step at a time. Believing that He has prepared us to launch a new style church in a 55+ community of 82,000 people. We say that we desire to start a church that is “spot-on” for Boomers, yet we don’t know what that exactly looks like. One step at a time. We don’t have a building but we have a name  - Live Oaks Community Church. One step at a time. We actually have grown from 2 to 4 to 21 people, or maybe more in the last 6 months. One step at a time.

I thought the picture entered with this blog was appropriate. It is perhaps the oldest and most beautiful planting of live oak trees in America, growing on a plantation outside of Charleston, SC. The photo portrays a path to be followed but the end goal is not visible – we take it one step at a time, by faith. And we trust that the One who has led us thus far, will be faithful to lead us once again. We follow Him – literally!

Taking Next Steps!

The first step is the toughest

Our family was together for a family reunion this summer in Estes Park and all 63 of us, ranging in age from 74 down to 1 were challenged to the zipline. The oldest and youngest passed but most climbed the pole and took that tough first step. Some walked off, others scooted their behind off the ledge and some fell backwards with no hands. I chose the backward trust fall which I thought would be impressive but the gasps from my family were there  way of saying, “He dropped like a rock/boulder.” There was nothing graceful about it and my body later questioned my taking the “manhood test.” I was really proud of many who overcame some very real fears and others over age 60 who sailed through the air.

My point in this illustration is that when we are doing something new, taking the next step is the hardest; but it is mandatory if we want to experience the pleasure of  the outcome. Some people are more risk takers than others but the point is not always to do something outrageous. Just take the next step and trust God. Is there something grabbing your attention but fear has held you back from trying? Perhaps a mission trip or opening your home for Thanksgiving hospitality or giving a financial gift to a person or organization in need. Give your fear to God and take the next step!

A Conference for Older Adult Ministry Leaders

Did you know that there is a conference dedicated to the topic of ministry to older adults? It is presented by CASA Network which stands for Christian Association Serving Adult Ministries Network. It used to stand for “something something Senior Adults” but they too have erased the word “senior” from most of their language.

Here is the link to their conference website:   http://gocasa.org/events/conference/

and here is the schedule:    http://gocasa.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/CASA-ILC-2011-Schedule-FINAL.pdf

I have attended this conference and have been around the leaders of the CASA Network and I am telling you that it is the strongest effort to gather like minded leaders who care deeply about ministering to age 50+ adults in America/the world. We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in older adult ministries as is made obvious by the fact that we don’t typically refer to this segment of ministry as “seniors’ ministry” any more. CASA Network understands this transition and is guiding pastors and leaders in how they can reach the “young old,” that is, the Boomers.  You will see the practicality of the topics if you look at the schedule. I am looking forward to sitting in on a number of workshops and the plenary speakers are of high caliber. I am particularly interested in a workshop titled, “Still Naughty? Still Wrong? Cohabitation after 80.”  Wow, is that really an issue? Yes it is! I had a pastor contact me recently telling me of that very situation in his church where an older Christian couple didn’t want to marry legally but wanted the pastor to perform an unofficial exchanging of vows.

It is not too late to register so if this is just what you have been looking for but didn’t know it existed, maybe I’ll see you in Anaheim from Nov. 9-11.

 

 

 

Church Planting Boomer Style

My wife Kathleen and I will be relocating to The Villages, Florida after Christmas to embark on a new journey. We have been invited to join one other couple there and seek to birth a new church which will be composed primarily of age 55+ people.  There are over 80,000 older adults in The Villages alone which is located about an hour north of Orlando and near other towns like Lady Lake, Leesburg and Ocala.

The Villages is a unique community not just because of it’s size, but also because of it’s ultra active lifestyle. Golf is just the beginning with 513 holes to play. There are also 100 tennis courts, 62 pools and over 1600 clubs to join. It would be easy to just play away one’s retirement at  a place like that. I like to play too  but we all need balance. We hope to challenge Villagers to “Play Hard and Pray Hard.”

We hope to create a unique church that appeals more to Boomers. What will it look like? I’ll have to get back to you on that one but I know that the music will reflect Boomer tastes and the atmosphere will be casual – after all, we are in Florida and most are retired so the daily shave for men is optional and business casual IS the new definition of dressed up. Perhaps the core DNA of this new church will be it’s missional focus. The church does not exist for itself, it exists for the world around it and we want to create a menu of service opportunities for a large segment of Kingdom workers  that have the time, resources and life experience to make a significant and even eternal contribution during the second half of life.

Will we meet Saturday or Sunday or both? Will we sit in rows of chairs or around tables? Will we have a nursery provided??? We Don’t Know!  This is the proverbial “build the plane as you fly” experience and we will take it a step at a time, asking God to show us His way. At this point in the life of the church plant with “us four and no more” we are simply going to meet to study His Word, pray and break bread together. We are praying that God would double our church by year end – do the math! We will begin in living rooms and rec centers and at Starbucks and Panera where we will watch God build His Church. Please pray with us.

Do you know anyone living in or near The Villages? I would enjoy meeting them and following up. I can learn from them about their own spiritual journey in their second half of life and also learn about the spiritual climate in The Villages. Our mission there is simply to reach the lost and mobilize the found for the cause of Christ. We pray that we will unlock some keys to ministering to Boomers and with that knowledge, help other pastors and churches to improve their ministry to this large and vital segment of the Church. They’re not done yet. They want an encore and they pray that the best has been saved for last.

What ideas do you have for Boomer ministry? What makes it unique?

Do you know anyone in The Villages? Send me their contact information at my personal email – chrisholck@me.com.