Register for Vault!

Our church planting conference, Vault, is less than 6 weeks away!!!   Once we hit 100 registrations, we're done.  So if you're gonna register, get to registering.

If you're a church planter, or a pastor who is serious about reaching people who are far from God, you need to be there!  We've got John Burke (of Gateway Church and No Perfect People Allowed) doing three session, and Will Mancini (of Auxano and Church Unique) doing a session on vision clarity.  I'm going to share what we do at Verve that allows us to reach people other churches aren't reaching.
This will NOT be stuff you hear at other conferences.  I promise.

For $100 you'll get that game-changing information AND you'll get three meals AND you'll get to see a Vegas show.  You'll also get to attend one of our services, network with other pastors and church planters, connect with church planting agencies, and more.  We've got a hotel deal for you for $35.  You need to be there!

Register today, and we'll see you at Vault - October 10-12.

VERVE Happs, Part TWO

Here's an awesome story out of Verve...

My daughter has a friend whose mother had her husband walk out, leaving her on her own with three kids.  Last year she lost her house and had to move, but had no one to help.  My wife found out, and we got a bunch of guys from Verve together to load and unload her truck.

Sooooo ... We have a lady in our church who thought we should collect school supplies for teachers.  We collected (a ton) and gave them on Thursday to the teachers at Dean Peterson Elementary, a school in a low income part of Vegas.

It turns out that the single mom who we helped move has been going to school to become a teacher, and is doing an internship at ... Dean Peterson Elementary.  On Friday she called my wife saying:  All the teachers here are going crazy over these gift baskets we were given, then I look in mine and saw a card, and realized that it was your church who gave them!  You guys are amazing!  I am so grateful for your church.

That is what we like to call guerrilla love.  Repeated ambushes of God's outrageous love.

Perfect.

VERVE Happs

This week we started our Go For Broke series and if you missed it, well, you missed a lot.  Listen to it on our website.  Here are some of the points we talked about:

1. God wants us to have peace and freedom in every area of our lives, including finances.
2. Most of us don't have peace or freedom with our finances.
3. We need a Biblical perspective on money and a plan to take us from broke to freedom.
4. The Biblical perspective on money is that God owns it all. He's letting us manage His stuff.
5. The Biblical perspective is that money is a test.  It tests our management skills, character, affections.
6. A plan that works is the 10-10-80 plan.
7. The first payment is (at least) 10% of what we bring in goes to God.
8. A lot of us think we can't afford that, but we can't afford not to.
9. Tithing (giving 10%) does SO much for us.  It grows our love and faith and trust in God, it invites Him into our finances, and more.
10. God doesn't ask us to give for Him, He doesn't need our money.
11. He asks you to give for you.  For what it will do in your life.
12. This series is not about getting the offerings up at Verve.  It's about you.
13. We are offering a Money Back Guarantee!  If you tithe (give a full 10%) of your income for one year, and don't feel like it was the right thing to do and it didn't grow you spiritually, we will return in full everything you gave over those twelve months.
14. The second payment is that 10% goes to yourself.
15. We put 10% into a "Freedom Fund" - an account or mutual fund that will pay interest, so instead of working for our money, our money will finally be working for us.
16. This Freedom Fund is for emergencies, vacations, retirement, etc.
17. The third payment is that 80% goes to the bills, your everyday living expenses.
18. How do you live off of 80%?  You make changes.  You get on a spending diet.  It will be hard, but it will be worth it.  Because following this plan will lead you to financial freedom, and to becoming a generous person who makes an eternal impact with their money.

To get all of what we talked about, listen to the message!

Vince Recommends...

For you blog readers...  I talk to so many people who go to each blog they read individually, that's crazy!  Use Google Reader, which acts like a mailbox all the blogs you choose to subscribe to get automatically delivered to it.  Your life is way easier, time is saved, and you don't miss stuff.

But here's the recommendation:  G Whizz is an iPhone App that allows you to have your Google Reader page on your phone.  That way you can read your blogs while you're standing in line, or at a red light, but not while you're driving!

Hurricane Question

Sure, I wonder about the naming system for hurricanes.  (How do they choose?  And why did we choose a system that would forever associate innocent people's names with mass destruction?) 

But here's my big question:  With all the advancements of science, why can't we "implode" (?) a hurricane?  I mean, we can send a space ship, land it on an asteroid headed for earth, and blow it up, with only one of the rag-tag group of astronauts killed in the process, but we can't figure out a way to destroy a hurricane before it destroys us?  (Yes, I know that I just used the plot of a movie, not an actual event, but still, you get the point!)

What's Yours?

A great man is one sentence.

                                                     - Clare Boothe Luce

So what is your one sentence? (Seriously.) (Like sit down and write it out.)

this weekend @ VERVE

The Bible talks about money more than any other topic other than God Himself.  At Verve we know the stereotype that churches always talk about money, and so we never have.  But we can't avoid a topic the Bible talks about repeatedly.

The cool thing is that all the talk in the Bible isn't about giving your money to God.  There are tons of practical principles that can help us get out of debt and to a place of financial freedom.  And together we'll learn a bunch of those principles in our new series: Go For Broke.  Here's a little commercial:

Don't Outsource Core Competencies

When Zappos (an online shoe store) was in its early years they were struggling to figure out how best to run a warehouse and ship orders and they decided to have another company do it for them.  It didn't go well as the company they hired didn't meet their standards.  What did they learn?  Don't outsource your core competencies.  It's one thing to hire someone to do tasks peripheral to your mission, but you need to do for yourself what's most critical.

How does that apply to your life?  Your business?  And for those of us who are church planters: What are the things your church is, or should be, or needs to be, best at?  And when you think about staffing, budgeting, and all that jazz - are you making sure you don't outsource your core competencies?

Want to learn more about church planting? Come to Vault, Verve's intensive, immersive seminar for church planters!

This Is Your Life (With God) Journey

Last week we were in Virginia Beach, which is where both of my kids were born and lived most of their young lives.  We had a few free hours one morning, so my wife and I took them on a "This is Your Life (With God) Journey."

We started at the hospital where both were born, went to the room they were delivered in, and shared the stories of their births.  We explained the complications, how we weren't sure if they'd make it, but what God did to bring them into this world.

We went to the two houses we lived in and shared stories of how we got and sold those homes, our favorite memories that happened inside them, and more.

We went to the movie theater our church started in, and the high school we met in when we committed to adopt an unreached people group in southeast Asia.

It was very cool.  A few tears, lots of laughs, and even more recognition and appreciation for what an awesome God we have and how amazing He's been to us.

VERVE Happs

We did our first ever "Vervecation" weekend.  The theme of our service was vacation, and we provided a little vacation experience in the lobby, with cotton candy, popcorn, snow cones, a bounce house, and live music.  Lots of fun.  People stayed around and seemed to really enjoy it.

The message was kinda sorta my first book condensed into thirty minutes.  The idea is that following Jesus should be kind of like going on a life-long vacation.  Sound wrong?  Dumb?  Read the book then let me know what you think.

We announced that we're changing the sign on our church.  Our sign says, "The Venue" instead of "Verve Church" and we had some reasons for doing that, but unfortunately we've had a bunch of people tell us that they struggled to figure out where we meet because of it.  So we've decided to change the sign to "Verve Church."  We can't afford to change both signs, so we'll still be "The Venue" on the back of the building...

Excited for our new "Go For Broke" series starting this upcoming weekend!

Anyone who attends Verve want to be in a Verve Fantasy Football League?  Let me know...

Vince Recommends...

Pretty good stuff:



You're welcome.

I LOVE this post by my (kinda) friend Joe Boyd.

 If you want to be something you currently aren't (an author, pastor, actor, etc.), you should totally take a couple minutes and read it.

this weekend @ VERVE

Do you love vacations?  Look forward to them?  Long for them?  Well, what if ... following Jesus is supposed to be kind of like a vacation?  What if the same sense of anticipation, and adventure, and relaxation that comes from a vacation, could also be part of your normal life because of being a Christian?

We'll talk about it this week as we do a Vervecation.  After the services we'll be giving you a quick little vacation experience out in the lobby, with live music, bounce houses, snacks, corn hole, and oh so much more.  So we'll see you there - wear your sunscreen!

Guerrilla Football Fans

Kris Hogan is the head coach of Faith Christian High School's successful football team. They once had a game against Gainesville State School, whose players are from a maximum-security  prison. As Max Lucado writes, their "school doesn't have a stadium, cheerleading squad, or half a hope of winning. Gainesville was 0-8 going into the Grapevine game. They'd scored two touchdowns all year."


The situation wasn't fair, and Coach Hogan had an idea. He asked his team's fans to sit on the other side and root for the other team. Most did. They held up signs and cheered the Gainesville players by name. After the game, the two teams gathered for prayer, one of the incarcerated players asked if he could lead it. He prayed, "Lord, I don't know how this happened, so I don't know how to say thank you, but I never wouldn't known there was so many people in the world that cared about us."

But the Grapevine fans weren't finished. As the Gainesville players got on their bus, each received a burger, fries, candy, soda, a Bible, an encouraging letter, and a round of applause.

You know what you call that? That ... is guerrilla love.

Music Manipulation

A market in England displayed French and German wine. They alternated playing French and German music. With French music on, they sold 40 bottles of French wine and 8 German. With German music playing, they sold 22 bottles of German and 12 French. Surveys revealed shoppers had no idea of the influence the music had on them. (Tom Stafford in "Music, Wine, and Will.)

What does that say? Well, lots. But it definitely means that if you're playing music in the background, it's more important / meaningful / powerful than you realize.

And if you're not playing music, that also may have more of an impact that you realize.

Vault! Vault! Vault!

Our church planting conference, Vault, is less than 2 months away!!!   I talk to people all the time who say, "I'm coming, I just haven't registered yet."  But we're limiting it to 100 people, and once we hit 100, game's over.  So if you're gonna register, get to registering.

And if you're not planning on registering - are you sure about it?  It's seriously going to be great!  We've got John Burke (of Gateway Church and No Perfect People Allowed) doing three sessions (personally, I think I probably have more to learn from him than maybe anyone in the country), and Will Mancini (of Auxano and Church Unique) doing a session.  I'm going to teach some of the principles we've learned and applied at Verve that has allowed us to reach people who are radically far from God and lead them to become radical Christ-followers.  This will NOT be stuff you hear at other conferences.  I promise you that.

For $100 you get all that material AND you get three meals provided AND we're bringing a Vegas show to our Venue to break up the day on Tuesday.  Not to mention that you'll get to attend one of our services, network with other pastors and church planters, connect with church planting agencies, and more.  We've got a hotel deal for you for $35.  This is seriously a no-brainer.

Register today, and we'll see you at Vault - October 10-12.

VERVE Happs

This weekend our message was presented through a (30 minute) video (which looked amazing thanks to Jimmy Altman).  That's different for us.  We don't do video sermons.  So why did we do it?  Well, mainly, because it's different for us.

One of the easiest traps for churches to fall into is "We've never done it that way before" or "That's the way we do it because we've always done it that way."  That will never be Verve.  We'll do it different, so that we've done it that way before.  And we'll do it a different way, so there will never be a way we've always done it.  Change is good.  Different for different's sake can be really healthy.  And we'll keep stretching us so we always stay flexible.

Hope you Ververs enjoyed the video and, if not, that's okay, cause it was different.

The Burden of the Church (4 of 4)

I was inspired to post on this topic because I keep reading all of these blogs from pastors called, "I love my church!!" and "I love pastoring!!" and "If I loved my church and loved pastoring any more than I do, my nipples would burst!!" And I think it's cool that they feel that way, but I often don't. Yesterday I explained WHY I pastor anyway, but for me it's not because I get a lot of joy out of it. So from what do I get my joy? 

Well, in my opinion, from the right places. As far as I can remember, God never teaches us to get joy from pastoring or from our church. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. If you can, more power to ya. But there are two places (that I can think of) where we're told where we're to get our joy. (1) Nehemiah 8:10, "Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." (2) Proverbs 5:18, "...rejoice in the wife of your youth." (I'm not going to mention the fact that the next verse says, "may her breasts satisfy you always.") (Whoops, just mentioned it).

I don't acheive this perfectly, but I want my joy to come from my relationship with God and my relationship with my wife. Personally, I don't look to pastoring or my church for joy. If I do get any joy out of that, that's just icing on the cake.

So, maybe my "confession" this week has encouraged you. At least, if you feel like I do, you can know that you're not alone

The Burden of the Church (3 of 4)

In the Bible, the Apostle Paul talked about the "burden" of the church. This week I've been confessing that, while I read lots of blogs where pastors rave about how great pastoring is, and how great their church is, I resonate more with Paul and often find it more of a burden than a joy. So why do I do what I do?

Well, first, because I'm called to it. This is what I believe God wants me to do. If He asked me to cheese grater myself to death, I'd do that too. He's wiser than I am, and loves me more than I do, so I'd be pretty stupid to not do whatever He wants.

Second, because I can't imagine doing anything else. Seriously, what else could I do that would have even a small proportion of the eternal impact that I get to have doing this? Nothing! There's lots of things we choose to do, even though they're not fun - exercising, dieting, studying. The wise choice isn't always the easy choice.

And, third, because even though it's incredibly difficult, it's also the most rewarding thing going. Yes, it's a burden, but being a part of changing lives is the most gratifying thing life has to offer. Does that make the difficulty worth it? Absolutely!

So I do it for those reasons, but it's not always a joy for me. In fact, it's often not a joy. So where do I get my joy? Tune in tomorrow...

The Burden of the Church (2 of 4)

After hearing the pastor at the conference admit that he didn't love pastoring and dreamed about doing something else, I decided to investigate. Just about every time I got to spend one-on-one time with a pastor I really respect I asked them, "Do you enjoy what you do? Is this like ... fun ... for you?"

I've asked about ten pastors that question. One said, "Yeah! Absolutely! This is the greatest!" The other nine said, "No, not so much." One confided, "I think God made me a pastor to make sure that I go to church. I wonder if I wasn't a pastor if I'd go at all." I totally understood what he was saying.

It's not that any of these guys are complaining or throwing a pity party. Each is just admitting, "This is really tough. So often the work of the church is a real burden." And I agree.

So why do I do it? I'll tell you tomorrow

The Burden of the Church (1 of 4)

One thing I've noticed in the pastor blogging world is that most rave about how much they love their church, how much they love pastoring, how it's the greatest thing in the world.


That is not the case for me. I don't always love my church, I don't always love pastoring, and I think there are approximately one thousand things I would rather do than this. I'm not confessing that to get your pity, or offers of counseling. I'm admitting it because maybe some people can relate.

A few years ago I was at a conference and a (mega-church) pastor I really admire admitted that he often daydreams about leaving ministry and going back to his high-school job of mowing golf courses. He explained that one day he got up his nerve and confessed that to a pastor he respected. He asked that pastor, "Do you ever do that?" The other pastor said, "No. ... For me it's working at an ice cream stand. No one ever leaves angry from an ice cream stand."


I was shocked. I thought it was only me. That led me to start doing some research, and I'll tell you about it tomorrow...

this weekend @ VERVE

So we've been talking about losing our religion, and finding a relationship with God. Does that mean it's all fun and no work? Or does it take work to grow in our relationship with God? And that's a good question: How do we grow in our relationship with God?! And how can other people help us? Do our relationships with them matter?

So many questions! And they'll all be answered this Sunday morning and Monday night at Verve as we conclude our Losing My Religion series by studying through Galatians 6, don't miss it!

Burden Blog Series

I'm back in Virginia Beach seeing family and old friends from Forefront (the church I started here). Very excited to be back for the first time in almost three years!

The next four days, while I'm gone, I'm gonna share an old four part blog series I did like four years ago on "The Burden Of The Church." It's especially for pastors, even more especially for struggling pastors, but I think it will be helpful for anyone. Enjoy.

For You Communicators...

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

VERVE Happs

One of my favorite things about Verve is that God continually brings in new people.  Every week we have people who are new, and generally who have given up on church but heard about us and are giving it one more chance.  So they come in skeptical, but hopeful; cynical, but searching.  And week-after-week God does amazing things in their lives.  (Typically through our awesome volunteers.)  Thought I'd share two posts people put on our   (Typically through our awesome volunteers.)  Thought I'd share two posts people put on our Facebook page about their first-time experience at Verve this week.  Here ya go:

Blake wrote:

Just went for my first time today after my sister had pestered me for awhile, like Warren's sister did if I'm not mistaken. I really enjoyed the service and loved the treadmill analogy. Let me tell you after being raised by a strict Catholic family "riding the treadmill" and always telling me to be perfect; this was a good experience. Growing up I soon realized they contradicted themselves far too much and it made me dread any church. I'm telling right now I'll be back. Thank you.

And Carla wrote: 

I went last night for my first time, and I was home. Thank you to such an amazing staff, and thank you Vince for helping me find Abba. My mother even wants to go again, I never thought I would hear her say that.

And I say: Thank you God, for letting me be a part of this...

Vince Recommends...

Once again, have to recommend the blog Indexed. You'll get stuff like this:

You're welcome.

David's Secret Weapon

Sin in Sin City

Author Scott McKnight recently had an article in Relevant Magazine: “Why Doesn’t Anybody Talk About Sin?”  In it, he writes:

     To many, sin has fallen into grace. What does that mean? When we talk about God’s grace, we are assuming the reality of sin—that we are sinners and that God has forgiven us. But in our language today, sin is not only an assumption—it is an accepted assumption. And not only is it an accepted assumption—it also doesn’t seem to matter.
     It’s as if we’re saying, “Yes, of course we sin” and then do nothing about it.
     Widespread apathy toward sin reveals itself in the lack of interest in holiness. Your grandparents’ generation overdid it—going to movies, dancing and drinking alcohol became the tell-tale signs of unholiness. Damning those who did such things became the legalistic, judgmental context for church life. So your parents’ generation, inspired in part by the ’60s, jaunted its way into the freedom of the Christian life. Which meant, often enough, “I can do whatever I want because of God’s grace.”
     That generation’s lack of zeal for holiness has produced a trend: acceptance of sin, ignorance of its impact and weakened relationships with God, people and the world.

We were talking at a recent staff meeting, and estimated that in the about 70 weekends of Verve, we've probably talked about sin in probably 50 or more of the messages. We are very much about grace, in fact we call ourselves "grace wholesalers" but one of the odd benefits of living in Las Vegas is that sin is not hidden, and it's impact is obvious.  So talking about?  Not such a taboo.

this weekend @ VERVE

This week at Verve we're talking about treadmills.  Treadmills are great for activity, but bad for a journey.  And maybe you feel like you're living on a treadmill.  Like your life is defined by constant activity, perhaps even constant religious activity, but you're not getting anywhere.  If so, DO NOT miss this Sunday morning or Monday evening at Verve. 

We'll talk about a secret that you can apply to your life, and that will allow you to get off the treadmill, and into a real adventure with God.

A Praying Murderer... A Praying Prostitute...

My friend is reading "Bonhoeffer" by Eric Metaxas and sent me this quote from Deitrich Bonhoeffer wrote after attending a church in Paris:

"On Sunday afternoon I attended an extremely festive high mass in Sacre Coeur.  The people in the church were almost exclusively from Montmartre; prostitutes and their men went to mass, submitted to all the ceremonies; it was an enormously impressive picture, and once again one could see quite clearly how close, precisely through their fate and guilt, these most heavily burdened people are to the heart of the gospel.  I have long thought that the Tauentzienstrasse [Berlin's red-light district] would be an extremely fruitful field for church work.  It's much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying.  Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity."

I'll be honest, I'm not one to cry, but reading that almost made me cry. If you could see what's happening here at Verve, and knew our dreams for the future, you'd understand why.

Inoculated

This weekend we talked about how a lot of people take a religious approach to God, a checklist kind of Christianity - go to church once a week, pray a little, give a little, maybe serve a bit. And it can look, and maybe even feel, like that makes you a Christian. But the reality is that what you're doing may actually inoculate you from true Christianity.

To prevent someone from getting a disease a doctor will inject them with a miniscule amount of the disease. It effects you a bit, but not much and it doesn't last. And you build up an immunity which prevents you from getting the real disease, you'll never be ravaged by it.

A lot of people do religion, they do their duty, look the part, talk the talk, and fool everyone (even possibly themselves) into thinking they have the real thing. But it's just a miniscule amount, just the external stuff. And it may effect them a bit, but not much and it doesn't last. And you build up an immunity which prevents you from getting real Christianity, you'll never be ravaged by it.

But is becoming a radical follower of Jesus really something to be avoided? Or is it the only path to true, abundant and eternal life?

Question: Are you inoculating yourself from truly following Jesus, or do you have the real thing?

Vince Recommends...

This is a different kind of recommended post. Typically I'm giving you crucial suggestions for your life, like to eat mangoes, the best reality shows to watch, and the availability of bras that can also serve as gas masks.

So you might think I have nothing truly constructive to offer.  And you'd be right.

But I was reading Alex McManus' blog, and he mentioned a "simple 5 step process for getting things done" that I thought was great.  So I thought I'd share it with you:

(1) Think big
(2) Start small
(3) Build on your successes
(4) Pray
(5) Never Give Up

You're welcome.