College Night at CLBC!

Yesterday we had the privilege of going to Edison College to hand out flyers for our upcoming College Night at CLBC. Below is the flyer we handed out. If you are in the Fort Myers area we would love to have you with us. Though we are calling it a college night, we welcome anyone who would like to come! This coming Monday, February 17, at 7:00 PM we will begin. We plan to have a great time singing, praying, and preaching/listening to the Word. Then we will have pizza and desserts in the Fellowship Hall. Hope to see you Monday!

Leadership Labs

Yesterday I posted about 5 things happening in our church that excites me. The first one is that we have started leadership labs. I was blessed to go through Shepherd's Training at Open Door Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC a few years ago. It was a most refreshing time for me! Yet, that was a place filled with many seminary students who were looking to plant churches and pastor churches. It was not necessarily what I thought would work here at CLBC. I knew I wanted to implement something similar, but wasn't sure where to begin. And by the way, I still believe that time being mentored by Pete Schemm and being a part of that training was the best training I've had for pastoral ministry!

I first heard of the idea of "leadership labs'" from my friend, Joe Thorn. Then I saw others posting on social media about their intentional leadership training. We already had some unorganized training taking place, but I knew we needed to have something more substantial in place. God-willing, we will soon move to a plurality of elders at our church, so we need men trained and qualified to fill those and many other positions in our church. I thought I would share today what exactly we are doing for ours.

Because this is new to me as well as our church I wanted a plan in place that would be challenging, but wouldn't completely overwhelm us. I also knew that not everyone invited would be elders, so we have two tracks to go with (deacon and elder). I also stated up front that going through this year together does not mean you will necessary serve in a leadership position, nor do I have any idea if you will remain at our church! So I had our first meeting in January where I shared the purpose, requirements, and the need to commit. So here is our plan:

Monthly Meetings: We meet every month as a group (it's presently 5 of us total). During our time together we have several things that happen. First, I open with a devotion. I've chosen to work our way through First Timothy this year. Next we have a time where one of our men will give a summary of the required reading for the month (I'll post those in a moment). Following the summary we take several minutes to discuss the book (all should have read it) and try to answer any questions or thoughts that flow from our reading. Next we have a particular subject that we discuss dealing with leadership. This takes the bulk of our time together (we're usually together close to 2 hours). And finally we have some time of prayer.

One-on-One Meetings: I have also requested that outside of our monthly meetings together each person has to meet with me for one hour face to face. The purpose is for me to know how to pray for and encourage my brothers. This is actually a great benefit for me as well! The hope for each of us men is that we will become better leaders in our home, church, and world. So in this time we pray, discuss various issues, and try to encourage one another.

Position Papers: I have also required each men to present three position papers throughout the year. The reason is for them to work through some of the pressing issues of our day. This, I hope, will help us to all have a biblical approach to what the Scriptures teach on various subjects. The first one on church polity is due in March!

Preaching Practice: For those working through this who aspire to the office of overseer and whom we have watched grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ, if they want to pursue eldership they will have opportunities to practice preaching. I realize not everyone will preach on a regular basis. However, we do want men able when the time and opportunities present themselves.

Required Reading: We have two tracks that we are working with. So the reading is not 100% the same. Each month one of men give a review of the reading for that month. The first 8 months are the same, and then we branch off. This list could change, but here it is:

Everyone

Brothers, we are not Professionals John Piper
Leading with Love Alexander Strauch
Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life Donald Whitney
What is the Mission of the Church? Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert
Let the Nations be Glad John Piper
Desiring God John Piper
The Conviction to Lead Albert Mohler 
The Deliberate Church Mark Dever and Paul Alexander 

Deacon Track

The New Testament Deacon Alexander Strauch

Elder Track

Biblical Eldership Alexander Strauch
Dangerous Calling Paul David Tripp
The Pastor’s Justification Jared Wilson
Preaching and Preachers D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Last thing I'll say about this, is that I am also seeking to be as gracious as possible with this. This is new. Things come up. Not all the reading always gets done. But we're working on it. And, God-willing, we will all seek to be better lovers of Jesus and leaders in our homes, church, and workplaces.

Blogging and Excitement

The point of this blog post today is two-fold. First, I am going to attempt at blogging again. It has been a while since I posted anything here, and even longer since I did with consistency. I'm not 100% sure what all I will blog about, but more than likely it will be personal things and things related to the church (the church I'm a pastor of most specifically). So, look for more posts to come!

Secondly, however, is to share a few things I'm excited about. These are referring to things that are presently happening at CLBC. Having been here for almost 3.5 years now, I can say with excitement that God is still working in and among us. Here are 5 things that have me excited:

1. Leadership Labs - We have just started this year leadership labs. I have 4 men that I am presently working with and praying with as God teaches all of us to be better leaders in the home, church, and world.
2. New Music Minister - In December we were blessed to have Sam Killman as our new music minister. His leading us through song has already been a great change for us!
3. Outreach/Mission - I am seeing our church think through more ways to engage the community around us. I am also blessed to have the opportunity to go to Romania this year, and hopefully will be back in Myanmar in the not-too-distant future.
4. College Worship Night - On February 17, at 7:00 PM, we are having our first ever college worship night here at CLBC. Actually, we would love for anyone to come, but we are focusing on reaching out to college students.
5. Our People - I am excited that God has given us the people He has. We are truly blessed to see an excitement and joy coming from our people. It makes worshipping and shepherding so much more enjoyable!

My plan is to talk more about each of these 5 things in the upcoming posts.

New Website. New Sermon Series.

I obviously do not post on here very often these days. I keep thinking maybe I'll pick it back up. And I believe I will eventually. However, for now I'd like to point you to two new things since the last time I posted.

First, our church has a new website. Check it out!

Second, we are now working our way through Philippians on Sunday mornings. I've titled it "The Sinner's Guide to Joy." If you are interested in listening to any of the first several sermons, or keeping up as we go along, you can find those here.

Follow Me

This morning I began two things as pastor of Cypress Lake Baptist Church. First, I began my 4th year as pastor here. It's hard to believe it's already been 3 years since we moved to Fort Myers, FL! God has been good. I still hope to blog about some of my recent reflections on the last 3 years.

The second thing I started is a new sermon series. I primarily preach expositionally through books of the Bible, but right now I'm doing a 7 week sermon series on being a faithful follower of Jesus. My hope is that we as a church will take seriously the call to make disciples of all nations. However, before we can call others to be disciples we must make sure we are first disciples. We need to make sure we are observing/obeying what Christ has commanded. This also means we need to know what Christ has commanded! That is my hope through this sermon series.

You can here the first sermon here: Follow Me: Take up your Cross and Follow Jesus

Happy Birthday Owen Daniel!

Today is my son's birthday. We were blessed Owen 4 years ago. Many do not know our story, but there was a time when we didn't know if we would be able to have any children biologically. Then we were blessed in 2005 with a little girl, Abigail Grace. After that we thought we were blessed and probably wouldn't be able to have any more. On Christmas day, 2008, we found out were going to have another child. On August 26, 2009 this little dude entered the world. What a great blessing he is to us!

Of course, I was one proud daddy! I wrote about why we named him Owen Daniel here. And this is still my prayer.

His sister was also proud to have a little brother. She even promised to love him forever!

My wife was also quite grateful for our little boy.

And by the way, the Lord wasn't finished blessing us. We had another son, Judson Elijah, last year.

Happy Birthday Owen. Daddy loves you 'dude-man' very much. May the Lord bless you and keep you all the days of your life!

Habakkuk

I just completed our series on Habakkuk. I can't believe how applicable this has been in my life and perhaps in the life of every church member. Though we do not know what it's like being taken into captivity, we can still resonate with this prophet. If you're interested, you can listen to the 11 sermons here.

God is Patient

In my last post I talked briefly about my transition to pastor of Cypress Lake Baptist Church. I'm coming up on the completion of 3 years here as pastor and I am keenly aware that God is extremely patient with His church (and pastors!). I came into this church with a ton of hopes and dreams. Being in a heavily unchurched area I thought the harvest is plentiful and was ready to labor to reap. I had hopes of transitioning the church smoothly and quickly so that we would be a missional church reaching our community with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I had plans and dreams of everyone who was already here joining in on the mission God had given us here in SWFL.

He's patient. He's far more patient than I am. My first year here we saw several visitors, but added maybe 2-3 new members. In fact, there was very little change overall. Everything pretty much stayed the same. Now, I was asked to come lead this church through change, but it wasn't happening. At least, it wasn't happening visibly. Our music stayed the same. Our dress stayed the same. Our structure stayed the same. Our ministries stayed the same. Everything appeared to be the same. And this began to cause some impatience on my part. I was ready to move forward...yesterday! But it didn't seem like God was using me to move this church anywhere.

I was wrong. Just because God doesn't appear to be working or moving doesn't mean He's not (just read Habakkuk 1 and you'll see this to be the case). God was working. He was working in my heart and in the hearts of His people here at CLBC. He was clarifying for me several factors (and still is). He was helping me to see how completely dependent upon Him we really are if we are to see any real, lasting change. He was working in the hearts of our people as many were growing in the Lord and becoming more and more gospel-focused. He was preparing us for whatever His will was in this church.

Looking back I can see the unbelievable amount of growth/change that came even in that first year. Though we didn't add or lose too many people that first year, we made some big decisions and were growing in grace. To put it simply, God was using my feeble attempts at preaching His Word to build up His people. He is patient. He is patient to work in my heart. He is patient to work in His church. But one very clear lesson to learn and to relearn is that though He is patient He is still working in and through His people.

I am grateful to be loved by such a patient God!

Reflecting Back 3 Years Ago

On this day three years ago my family and I were visiting Fort Myers, FL for the first time. We flew in on August 5, 2010 to see the area, meeting with the pastor search committee of Cypress Lake Baptist Church, preach on Sunday, and flew back to North Carolina and then drove to where I was pastoring First Baptist Church in Pulaski, VA. Today I'm reflecting on that time as well as what the Lord has done these past three years.

That first weekend in August was a hot one! It was ridiculously humid and hot. Did I mention it was hot in August? Well, it still is! Anyway, my wife and I immediately loved the area. We like the beach, so being within a few miles of it sounded like a great thing. It's certainly not a big city, but reminds me somewhat of where I grew up in Matthews, NC. And, there were plenty of coffee shops around. All that was good and exciting.

On Saturday, August 7, I was able to meet face-to-face with the search committee. That was my first time meeting all of them face-to-face (we had several phone conversations prior to this). The meeting when well. Though I was still unsure if the Lord would lead us to this church. In fact, the Wednesday night before we flew down to FL we had a fantastic meeting at my church in VA. A meeting that caused me to reconsider whether we should stay or leave. I was torn at this point.

Then came Sunday! Sunday morning was a great joy for me. I preached a sermon from Matthew 16 because I wanted our church to know that Jesus would be responsible for building this church if He chose to do. One thing that drew me, however, was that when I looked over the small congregation I saw diversity. We were not all the same color! And that was really exciting for me. For the evening service I preached a sermon from Matthew 28 because I wanted our church to know that Jesus builds His church through His people being faithful to go and make disciples of all nations. All went well on that Sunday.

However, we were still not 100% sure God would lead us to CLBC. There was the flock in VA that loved us and cared for us deeply. And we loved them. Once we got back to VA it became clear that it was time for us to leave. There was a very uncomfortable feeling about the church. People knew I was preaching at another church in FL and that I may be leaving FBC. At that point it became clear to us, but Cypress Lake had not yet voted to extend a call to me. That came August 15. And it was unanimous. And we excepted. And within a couple weeks we were moving.

I wrote this blog post then describing the hectic schedule moving and settling in Fort Myers.

In the next few days, God-willing, I'll post some reflective thoughts on what God has taught me over the past three years.

Compelled to Love by Love

I don't blog often. That's an understatement for sure. This post is about something that has been stirring in my heart for a while, but this past weekend I felt "compelled" to do something about it.

What's the stirring? For the past 2 years and 10 months I've been pastor of Cypress Lake Baptist Church in Fort Myers, FL. The work has been difficult at times, but definitely rewarding. God has been kind and gracious to work here, often times through my mistakes. When I came I understood the church was an older congregation that had been in decline for some years. We are not a large church, but there was a group here that really wanted to move forward for the glory of God. I stated when I came that I wanted our church to be known for our gospel centrality and a desire to reach our community with that gospel. I still do!

However, after almost 3 years the truth is we have not engaged our community well. We have been blessed with many visitors over the past few years. Some of these visitors are now members. Many are not. I am grateful to God that He has sent us these visitors. It is evidence to me of a kind, gracious, patient, and generous God. However, we have not been faithful at going out into our community with the gospel.

Because I strongly believe we need to be out in our community more with the gospel I have been thinking more and more about how we can genuinely care for those around us. I am grateful that God has sent us visitors. It's exciting. But I am still burdened about being obedient to take the gospel to those around us. This is a strategy that we are currently thinking through as a church.

I am compelled to get into our community better, but there is more still. Two different things happened over this past weekend that caused me to feel compelled about something else. First, my friend Joe Thorn and some of the guys from his church went street preaching in Chicago. I've never been to Chicago, but I hear it's not an easy place for the gospel. I thought this took boldness and caused me to think about what I am (or am not!) doing that takes boldness for the sake of the gospel. You can read some of Joe's thoughts following their night out here. The second thing was a blogpost I read Friday night. It was a powerful post about caring for a homeless man and loving him in Christ. You can read it here.

After thinking about my need (and our church's need) to be bold for the gospel in our community, as well as thinking about that blogpost, I felt compelled to think about and plan to take the gospel to those who seem untouchable. I've done this overseas, but have failed in SWFL. There are many different types of people we could put into the category of untouchable. My thought is about those who the church oftentimes overlooks or has a fear of engaging. I've thought of a few: homeless, gang members, drug or alcohol addicts, prison, etc.

I feel compelled to take the gospel to them. But I feel compelled to in the First Thessalonians 2:8 way, "So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us." I stated a moment ago that I want us to genuinely care for those around us. I want them to be very dear to us. I asked a friend/church member this morning, "Would you still love them even if they never believed?" That's a tough question. Really tough! But that is the call. Whether they are neighbors or enemies, we are called to love them (Matthew 5:44, 22:39).

This is new to me. But I am compelled. I am compelled to love. And I am compelled by love. I am compelled by the love of Christ in my life to take the gospel to everyone I can in SWFL. And in particular to touch those who seem untouchable.

If you know of any resources, or churches/people doing this well, would you please let me know?