Sunday Evening Reflections

Wow! What a weekend! Today we became a church that meets in multiple locations. We are now officially a multi-site church. We had such a great day today at The Journey. We had over 219 adults and over 50 kids that we had a chance to minister to. This has been a part of the vision of the church for more than 3 years since we first opened. Today that dream became reality. I'm so grateful to all the people who put in hard work and sacrifice to make that happen. The campus pastor's Shawn Allen and Todd Bates have been phenomenal. Robbie Cheuvront and the tech team guys have been irreplaceable and absolutely ensured that we were able to be fully functional in both locations. It is just exciting to see everything come together so well. Our Host Teams and Children's Ministry were stellar at both locations today and provided a great experience and friendly atmosphere for families attending.

There is still work to be done and many awesome days ahead with our two remaining previews and Grand Opening on March 1st. The Journey became a different church today and this day will not quickly be forgotten. Invite a friend, tell a co-worker, and help continue to ignite this Jesus movement that we all believe needs to happen.

Journeying forward,
Pastor Erik

The Time is Here

We are now only two days away from opening our second campus at The Journey. It is exciting to think about what is going to take place. We have been working extremely hard and praying even harder for this new start. We have distributed nearly 5,000 door-hangers throughout the Providence/Mt Juliet community. We have a newspaper article done on us. We have had communication go out through the school to the families and faculty. Now the time is here to move forward. Be praying that God leads people to respond to the invitations. Pray that His would be glorified and sought after by those who attend. Pray that this would be step one of a Jesus movement igniting in our area. Invite your friends and family to come experience this exciting day at Providence campus launch. This Sunday, February 8th @ 10:30am - Rutland Elementary School behind the Providence development.

A Big Week

After typing the title to this BLOG, I'm asking myself if there is such thing as "Big" or "Small" week...a week is a week. Anyway, sorry for the sidetrack. I'm excited about this week. We are launching our second location in the Providence community this week. We have had the vision of being multi-site since the day we opened our doors three years ago, now the time is finally here. It is so much fun to watch what God is doing. He is bringing people to the church and changing peoples lives. If you have people that you have been wanting to invite to The Journey, this is a great week to do so. The West Campus meets at 9am and the Providence Campus meets at 10:30am.

Another note of news: The Mt Juliet News will be running the newspaper article reported in the Lebanon Democrat this Wednesday, so be looking for it. Pray often this week as you take time to think about all that God is doing at The Journey and the lives that can be changed through the starting of this new campus.

I've Got a Poll Question:

What is your favorite praise and worship song we do at The Journey? If you don't go to The Journey, what is your favorite Christian radio song or praise song from your church?

Currently for me: All Because of Jesus I'm Alive and Glory to God

Your turn.

Exciting Times

We are in some exciting times right now at The Journey Church. We are down to our last week as a church that meets in one location. As of February 8th (next Sunday) we will be a multi-site church. This is something we had envisioned from the day we opened three years ago, and now it is here. We went last night as a small group and put out close to 1000 door-knockers in neighborhoods surrounding Providence. The Campus Pastor of Providence, Shawn Allen, took a team out earlier in the day and distributed around 1000 as well. We still have 3000 more door-knockers we are going to distribute over the next several days. We are praying for people to be at the previews that God wants there. We believe if people know about what we do and experience it for themselves, we are going to have the opportunity to minister to a lot of people. We are 12 days from preview #1, please be in prayer that God would fill the building with the people He wants there and pray that we would continue to be diligent in our work of ministering to those who have needs.

Reminder: we finish our Re-Elect Jesus series this Sunday. You don't want to miss this last sermon of the series. If you have missed previous installments of the series, click here to watch any on video that you may have missed. Don't forget that this Sunday is the last day the service at West will be at 9:30am, we go back to 9am beginning February 8th.

Takin' it to the People

The above title is the title of the newspaper article that was written about the Journey in today's Lebanon Democrat. It is a feature story that was very well written by J.R. Lind. It was awesome to read the article and think about where God has taken us over the last three years. By the way, The Journey's three year anniversary is this Sunday. The article is coming out in the Mount Juliet News also. Go pick up a copy if you haven't seen it already; it will make you proud to say you are a part of The Journey - I sure am.

Video on the Journey and Providence Campus

Quote

"Anyone who reduces the following of Jesus to an enterprise of the heart, the head, and private interpersonal relations restricts the following of Jesus and trivializes Jesus himself"

Jesus and the Hope of the Poor - (Schottroff and Stegemann)

Doors of Opportunity

I have an amazing opportunity today to share the vision of The Journey with Lebanon Democrat & Mount Juliet News. I'm meeting a reporter this morning for a story that will be a feature story in the paper. We are going to be talking about our vision of multiple campuses and why we have chosen to go that direction. I'm excited about the chance to tell Wilson County about who we are and why we do what we do. I hope it reaches readers who can identify with us and would want to be a part of the movement. I believe there will be some doors opened through this article.

We also have our Informational Meeting about the Providence Campus tonight. It will be at Rutland Elementary School beginning at 6pm. I don't know how many people from the community will come, but we are doing our part to let them know what we are about and how they can be a part of The Journey.

Please pray for both of these opportunities today.

Important Providence Campus Dates

Hello all, I hope everyone has had a great week. I have some important dates to relay to everyone in regards to movements happening surrounding the Providence Campus.

* January 19th - 6pm @ Rutland Elementary there will be a community wide informational meeting to share about the new campus. There were adds that ran in the paper concerning this meeting and we hope many people from the church and outside the church will come.

* January 27th and 28th during the day there will be teams of people distributing door-knockers throughout the Providence neighborhoods concerning the Preview Services. **WE NEED WILLING PEOPLE TO HELP OR SUGGEST OTHER DAYS THEY COULD HELP DO THIS

* February 2nd - 5:30pm @ Rutland Elementary there is a Math Night for the school in which THEY NEED 10 VOLUNTEERS TO HELP (this can be a good chance to do some last minute inviting to the Previews, in addition to showing an attitude to serve)

* February 8th, 15th, and 22nd - 10:30am are the three Preview Service dates. This will be a chance for people to get a sneak-peak of what the Journey Church is all about and experience our community of faith

* March 1st - 10:30am is the Grand Opening of the Providence Campus. From this point on, we will have weekly services that will align with our West Campus. Both campuses will be identical services, children's ministry, and group structure

Mission

Just wanted to remind myself and all of us what the church and our lives as followers of Jesus are to be all about. We are not called to become better people. We are not called to be good Christians. The ultimate goal of a follower of Jesus is a transformation from self-serving individual to missionary. We are called to be missionaries. This is not the traditional idea of a missionary, who goes to live overseas amidst a population they seek to evangelize. Rather, this is a lifestyle of living on mission in whatever context you may find yourself. We are to live as daily missionaries in every environment we are in.

The church is a missionary sending agency. Her mission is to be a missionary producer and community of faith, love, and hope. The missional role of the church is to reconcile people to God and to each other through the life of Jesus Christ. That is what the church is for. This is who we are supposed to be becoming.

Are you living as a missionary? Do you think the church of Jesus today is living its missional calling?

Sad Reminder

On Sunday night I took some time to visit a church in Mount Juliet. This is a Baptist church. It has about a 100+ seat auditorium with a big fellowship hall and children Sunday school classrooms. I went to visit them because I wanted to see what is going on in other churches in our community. I got there 20 minutes before the evening service was to start and nobody was anywhere in sight. The parking lot was empty, the lights were off, and I assumed that service had been canceled without me knowing. I decided to stick around, just in case someone popped by. About 10 minutes before service was to start, a few cars trickled in, then another few. I decided to make my way in. When I went inside everyone looked at me with a look of confusion on there face. Someone even asked me, "are you kin to someone here or are you a just a visitor?" I told them I was a visitor and that I was the pastor of a local church who just wanted to fellowship with them for the night. They were so excited that I was there, I would later discover why.

The music we sang were old hymns, but they didn't have a piano player, so we sang along with a tape. We got up and down from the pew nearly 4-5 times as we would sing and sit, then get up to sing again. Several times the guy controlling the tape played the wrong song. The message finally came and it was a message about "laboring for the Lord." It wasn't a bad message, but it was a very scattered message. The entire time I sat in the building, I just wondered if they realized why they weren't reaching people. Their Sunday morning attendance had been 19 that morning, and the interim pastor who was preaching was telling them that God wasn't satisfied with that. However, I highly doubted that any of them were willing to change their patterns or traditions to reach lost people.

I enjoyed being with this small group of people. They were very kind and were very excited that I was there. They invited me to be with them again, and to bring a piano player if I could. I left that night reminded of why there has to be churches willing to make their priority and focus reaching the lost. To reach the lost means to set aside comfortable ways of doing things, it means creating environments in which they feel comfortable to explore faith, without being called out or chastised. I also left thinking about what habits and patterns we have gotten into that may seem find to me and others, but are working against our efforts of reaching people. It was a sad reminder that there are churches dying, and not enough thriving today in our community.

Sunday Evening Reflections

What a great day! We had a phenomenal crowd yesterday. We had every chair out and there were people still sitting in the bleachers. We kicked off the new series: Re-Elect Jesus. I look forward to really challenging our paradigm on our dependence on government over God in our culture and society. There are needs we expect the government to meet that are really the church's job to meet.

We spoke specifically about the fallout's that occur when we begin to compartmentalize our lives into the "spiritual life" and the "real world." We make God a segment of our life rather than the center of our life. This produces two things: 1. We divide the secular and spiritual. We start living as if every decision, conversation, and choice were absent of spiritual implications. 2. We become practical atheist. A practical atheist is someone who claims to believe in God, but lives as if he doesn't exist.

The question that was posed for everyone to reflect on as we closed was: Where is God in your life? Are you shutting Him out, is He a segment of it, or is He at the center?

I look forward to the next three weeks of this series, then we start Providence!

Preach It Brother!

I had to post this quote that I read this morning from the book I'm reading, Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton. In his chapter, Theology of the Devil, Merton is talking about the prevailing theology of only talking about sin, punishment, and people who seem to love discussing this. He says,

It sometimes happens that men who preach most vehemently about evil and the punishment of evil, so that they seem to have practically nothing else on their minds except sin, are really unconscious haters of other men. They think the world does not appreciate them, and this is their way of getting even.

Wow! Now that is well said and extremely insightful. I agree with his assessment of preachers who only seem to focus on the sin of men and describing to others the punishment forthcoming. Does this mean to avoid all such conversation? No. It does mean that you should not derive pleasure, nor revolve your entire preaching ministry around this topic.

Just thought I would share that today. I love that quote.

Sunday Evening Reflections

What a great day today! It was a lot of fun laying out why we want to "ignite a movement" at The Journey. We had a great crowd and great response to the message. I believe we are more and more beginning to see our role and what God has in store for us in the future. It was also a privilege to baptize two people today to start the new year off. We plan and pray to see many more in 2009.

We also had a great lunch after church regarding the Providence campus launch. We gave them some pertinent dates that are coming up and challenged them to see themselves as the leadership cadre that would move the Providence campus forward. We had nearly 20 plus people at the meeting, very exciting!

I cannot wait to see what happens in 2009. It will be the greatest year in Journey history. Thank you everyone who plays such a pivotal role in making our mission happen, you are the heroes of the Journey. As we sang today, God, "We'll run with you, Lead On, We'll run with you, our God."

This Weekend @ The Journey

I'm boiling over inside to preach the message I have for Sunday. I knew what I was going to talk about in general for weeks, but earlier in the week God really laid out some things for me to say. I went to bed around 9:30pm (an all-time early for me), but I could not go to sleep. I was praising God for His blessings in my life. I was praying for people in my life and the for the church. I was praying that God would give me a deeper hunger for Him than I've ever had before in 2009. During all that time of prayer, God began to lay some specific things out for me to share this Sunday. I got out of bed to write things God was speaking to me twice during the night. The last time it happened was around 2am in the morning (yeah, five hours after I went to bed!).

Make every effort to be there this Sunday. I'm excited about sharing this message God has put on my heart. I'm excited about baptizing people and celebrating the lives that have been changed. It is 2009, and it will be a year that will surpass any we have had before.

26.2

Well I'm doing it. Call me crazy, but I'm going to run the full marathon this coming April in Nashville. Alex Perry and I are going to take the challenge. It is 26.2 miles. I'm a fairly consistent runner and don't really have much problem running distances, but I have never ran that kind of distance. I'm going to begin an "Army style" training regiment early in the mornings to start getting prepared for it.

My biggest reason for running the marathon is that it is one of my life goal's. I have a list of about 100 life goals that I want to accomplish before I die. Others include: learning to speak Spanish fluently, become a skilled guitar player, be baptized in the Jordan River, write a book, etc. I hope in 2009 I can mark several off the list, but this one I will do for sure. Wish me luck, and if you're brave enough, join me.

End of Year

I can't believe 2008 is days from being over. This year has been unbelievable in my personal life and in the church. I think it is fun to look back over the year and point out the highlights and the lessons learned. I had the leadership team at church do this as we opened our meeting. I asked: what is your favorite moment in 2008 in the church, and what is the biggest lesson you have learned in 2008? The stories and lessons shared were insightful, and they reminded me again of how good God has been to us this year.

Me personally, this has been a year of learning to please God more than I want to please others. God has challenged me to love others, but live to please Him alone. This means I have to be willing to make decisions that are not popular, if God is leading it. It means I have to be willing to preach messages that could step on toes, if that is what God wants me to say. It means I have to quit living to make others happy, and live to solely please my Father in heaven. Have I mastered this? No. However, I feel I have made strides in this direction.

What has been some of your favorite moments from 2008? What has been the biggest lesson you have learned?

I look forward to an incredible 2009 with God, my family, and The Journey!

First Semester in the Books

Well, I finished my last exam this morning. It was a three hour, mack-daddy size exam. It was tough semester but I think when the final grades come in I'll be happy. I worried at first if Vanderbilt didn't make a huge mistake in admitting me to the school, but once school started, I quickly felt that I would be able to do it. It has been a good semester. I met some great people and have even recruited a guy to the church. I look forward to next semester, but I'm excited to have a month to breathe.

Spiritual Formation...In the Marriage

Most Christians have a focus and desire to grow spiritually. Everyone will grow at a different pace, but to some degree, most Christians want to be closer to God and grow as believers. One of the major things I see developing in Christianity is a very individualistic approach to faith. We have our eyes set on our own spiritual development. We have "my" relationship with Jesus. In the ancient days, being a Christian was a very communal thing. Your faith was lived out openly with others. Your growth as a believer was spawned on and shared by others. The major problem that has developed from individualistic faith is that we don't know how to have a relationship with God with our spouse.

When the Scriptures talk about the two people becoming one in the marriage relationship, I believe this includes our relationships with Jesus. We are to be growing as a couple in our relationship with God. How do we do this? Why are we so uncomfortable with this? I have listed five questions that serve as a litmus test to your relationship with God as a couple. See how you do:

1. Do you pray together daily?
2. Do you pray and ask God for guidance and then wait for an answer in regards to major decisions as a family/couple?
3. Do you read the Bible together regularly?
4. Do you share regular conversations about the things that God is teaching you in your walk with Him?
5. Do you confess sin to one another and pray for each other through those things?

We can think we are mature Christians, but we may be baby Christians in our walk with God as a couple. See how you shape up on these questions. Commit to begin the process of spiritual formation and growth as a couple. I believe it holds the key to a more vibrant marriage and a more fruitful walk with Christ.

Sunday Evening Reflections

It has been a great today! We had an incredible service today at church. It was amazing to see all the people in one service...wow! There was a ton of energy in the room. We wrapped up the Love Sick series today. I personally believe it has been one of the best series we have ever done at The Journey. We finished it off with a bang today. It was awesome to take communion together as an entire church. It was an even more amazing sight to see all the people signing the cross as couples. I'm excited about what is coming for us a church in the weeks ahead.

On a personal note, I went to the Titans game today. A very generous person in the church gave me tickets as a Christmas gift. I usually don't have a chance to go to Titans games because of preaching on Sunday's and the because we have had two services on Sunday's. Having one service today allowed for me to that. It was cold, but a ton of fun. Titans won and clinched their division.

Pray for me this week. I have my finals at school and then I get to have about a month long break. It has been a challenging first semester of graduate school, but I'm learning some neat stuff and meeting some cool people.

Journeying forward!

Catching Up

Well, I have been without internet access for nearly a week. I'm still recovering from the side-effects. I got my internet working again today and feel like I've missed everything going on in the world, though I haven't really missed anything. I feel like a have a ton of catching up to do. Couple of things going right now:

* Small group game night at my house tonight for all those interested (leave a comment if you need the address)

* I can't believe the Love Sick series is on Week 3 of 4 this week, it has went by fast

* We are going to be making the Love Sick series into a DVD set that can be purchased. The cost is $20 for the entire series on DVD; the proceeds go toward purchasing Catalyst equipment for our current and future campuses

* We are going to be making the following series available for purchase as well: War Zone, DNA, Shattered -- these are all $20 for an entire series

* This Sunday is our last week at 2 services, we are prepping for our move to Providence on February 8th -- service on December 7th is at 9:30am

Lots of great things going on right now in the life of The Journey. I will be sending a newsletter out in the next week outlining some of the focuses for the 2009 and recapping some of where we have been for 2008.

This Sunday @ The Journey

This weekend at The Journey we are going to be talking about what things poison our relationships. We are continuing our Love Sick series. Last week we had great crowds and a lot of fun. This week will be no different. If you have friends and family you have been wanting to invite, this week would be a great weekend to extend the invitation. Once again, you do not want to be late, the opening song will be incredible. Also, you never know when a surprise interruption and dance could break out (had to have been there last week to get that one or go watch the video at www.thejourneytn.org).

I'm looking forward to what God is going to do this weekend in the lives of people and in the relationships represented every weekend. Don't be late: 9am and 11am. Reminder: December 7th begins our move to one service at 9:30am. This will be until February 8th 2009 when we begin our preview services at Providence. Service times for services when we begin Providence campus will be: West Campus 9am and Providence Campus 10:30am. Both campuses will offer the same service, with the same music, and the same teaching/teacher.

Everything

A question that has been stirring in my spirit the last month or two is: Am I saying EVERYTHING God wants me to say? It seems like an easy question, but it is not. Am I willing to say things that I know will upset people? Am I willing to say things that will step on some toes? Am I willing to say the whole truth and call people to be transformed by it? My mind tells me yes. Sure I'm willing to say everything. Then my spirit asks me again, Are you saying EVERYTHING God wants you to say?

I have a few people in my life who I trust to share words from God with me. Some people love to claim to have the gift of prophecy, but it is just another way of saying they want to tell you what to do. The individuals I trust with this have shared encouraging things with me and challenging things. At the Sunday night event, one of those individuals whispered into my ear during worship, "God wants to pour so much more into you, but you have to quit holding back. He's going to bless what you are doing, but don't hold back." What I kept hearing was, "everything," give Him everything. Say everything.

I wanted to give you a little something that I'm praying through in my life and that perhaps you could join me in. I want to please God, not man. Pray I would say EVERYTHING God wants me to say and that He would open the floodgates as a result. Ask the question for yourself. Are you giving God everything?

Sunday Evening Reflections

Today was one of the greatest days in Journey history, no question about it! We started our new series: Love Sick and had over 200 people at church. That is single-handily the largest crowd outside of Easter we have ever had. Both services were packed to the gills and it was an amazing day. Highlights from this morning:

* The praise band opening service by singing "Power of Love" by Huey Lewis
* Our worship time was incredible, "Glory to God" and "Jesus is Alive" was amazing
* The electricity in the room today was second to none, you could sense God was moving
* Jeff Bode and Alex Perry interrupting my sermon introduction by dancing to "What is Love" ...by the way, neither can dance :-)
* Seeing people praying with other people all over the building today - awesome!

Tonight we had our Volunteer/Journey Awards celebration, it was so much fun. This was the largest attended event we have ever had outside of Sunday morning. As we were leaving and dismissing all people could talk about was how much fun that was. Highlights from the night:

* the 1,000 pots of chili people made (okay, it wasn't that many, but seriously)
* giving awards for the best pot of chili, congratulations: Jeff Bode, Amber Burton, and Robbie Cheuvront (first place)
* getting to tell all the volunteers how much they mean to us and show them by raffling off some cool prizes and sending everyone home with a Journey hoodie
* watching Todd Bates and Shawn Allen give out the Journey awards, it gets better every year to watch people's reactions
* our winners: Brewington's (Spirit award), Andrea Vickers (Unsung Hero), Jay Spice (Rising Star), Kelly Piercy (Special Recognition), and Jeff Bode (Journeymen of the Year) -- Jeff's speech was both stirring and inspiring, unbelievable
* Seeing Amy Jordan's vision of participating in Samaritans Purse and setting a goal of 50 boxes get doubled (over 100) and praying for the kids who would get them
* Sharing the statistics that the Journey is in the 4% of churches in America that qualify for being considered an "effective evangelistic church" -- at least 26 conversions in a year and a 20:1 conversion ration (The Journey's conversion ratio is 5:1)
* As always, praise and worship at the end was stellar and second to none; however, THE KIDS TOOK THE NIGHT by playing with the band during "Sing, Sing, Sing" to close the night -- best moment for sure!

It was great. I love this church. You are the best. We march forward toward the mission God has birthed us to accomplish.