Community at Watermark

I had a phone call with a long time  friend 2 weeks ago who is a Green Beret.  We talked for over an hour because there is always much to catch up on because he is typically embedded in enemy territory developing relationships with locals in order to train local military.  The role of the Green Berets are FORCE MULTIPLIERS.  They gain trust with locals in order to train, teach, model, medically help, and lead locals to develop a local military army who will suppress local or nationalized evil.  They are evaluated based on their ability to multiply themselves, so others long term can do the work.  I hope that definition does justice.    My friend is an all-star: boyscout, west point grad, Army Ranger, husband, father, and follower of Christ.  He is wise and has always modeled integrity, not to miss he is “skinny as a rail” and could crush me with his little finger.  Anyway back to the community implications.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Community groups should produce a similar outcome: multiplying disciples so that the kingdom of God can advance  increasingly through our lives and those in our groups.  My wife and I were just talking that the result of our 3 year group experience so far has been life change.  We have grown a ton,  and as we look at the couples that we have locked arms with, they have grown just as much.  We are way more able to lead and teach men and women as individulals.

and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. – 2 Tim. 2:2

Has your community been a force multiplier? A discipleship multiplier?

If not what’s the missing ingredient?

Commitment, modeling, pushing yourself and others to work towards “everything I have commanded you” (conforming/obedience to God’s word, gaining trust, time, clear mission, goals? 

I’ve been chewing on this concept of the “line of trust” for a couple of weeks and forgive me if it is not original, but i can’t remember ever reading about it so we’ll say it’s something that’s at least rolling around in that head of mine.    All relationships operate on trust or the lack of trust.

At the end of the day trust dictates everything relationally, both with the Lord and with humans.  I’ll continue to use an example that I have used before with the Lord.  If you trust that God knows what you need, and he loves you then it will directly affect you worrying about food, shelter, and clothing (Matt. 6; and one of my big personal applications in 2009).  Humanly, if someone lies, cheats, steals from you and they are your friend it affects the core issue of trust. If your group has someone who won’t work through money issues in your group (like Moneywise), they don’t trust that you can handle their finances…It’s too exposing.  On the other end, when someone loves you enough to tell you something you don’t want to hear for your own good, and you trust them…that’s relationship (Pr. 27:6)

So, here’s the line of trust as it’s relationship to community.  The total length of time that a community group is together is like a football field.  Yes, think football field.  Lines running horizontally every 5 yards for 100 yards. Think about the faces of everyone in your community group.  They all have stories, pasts, and all have had trust broken in the past on some level.

There’s a huge spectrum right?  Some people are so scarred by their past that if you told them the sky was blue they wouldn’t believe you, others are on the other end of the spectrum.  At the endzone on the far end of the football field is the “line of trust”.  Imagine the people in your group being scattered all over the field, and the goal of the leader is to move them towards that goal line relationally.  If we jump off of the playing field because it’s too hard or it’s “not a good fit” then we lose in the long run, because we will still need to learn to trust people relationally where we can be transparent, authentic, and truly be known.

At the end of the day, the goal of the community group leader (shepherd) is to keep all players on the field  moving towards the line of trust, where true community happens.

The field involves blood, sweat, tears, and nights laying in bed thinking of resolving conflict with someone, yes countless nights.  If you are involved in a group, you know that it’s extremely difficult the longer period of time you move forward. Why? Imagine someone who is back on the 5 yardline (we’ll call him Rob) and someone else is on the other 5 yard line  about to reach the line of trust with others (we’ll call him Dan).  How can that group function and be healthy….Stay on the field and hopefully over time Rob will move to the 10 or 15 yardline.  Or to stick with the illustration, Rob could move all the way to the line of trust in a short period of time. We just don’t know how long it will take for others to trust.  You don’t know if it will be a fast growing tree or an oak that takes decades to grow.

Here’s what I do know, relational growth takes a long time and if patience is a virtue and  a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5) then it is celebrated in the world of community.  My desire for  you is that you would exercise extreme patience as you keep your community players on the field moving towards the line of trust. Thoughts?

So, I’ve spent the last 2 weeks  remodeling and moving, and two weeks before that packing the old house.  The last time Leslie and I bought a house and remodeled one was 6.5 years ago (let’s just round up to 7 because it sounds more epic).  I was 6.5 years younger, working part-time at Starbucks,  Leslie was the Sugar Momma, and we had no kids.  All that to say, The second day into the remodel, I was beat.  I’m talking straight-up-whipped….and if the Spirit is at WAR with the flesh (Gal. 5), the flesh was winning.  My attitude, mouth, compassion, and love for anything sacred was in the dump as I inhaled Sheetrock dust deep into my lungs.

That’s when God’s underserving grace, mercy, and provision showed up through people.  They painted, sheetrocked, wired, built a gate, moved, moved, moved, unpacked boxes, moved really heavy crates into the attic, etc.  People were there until 12am at night with work looking over their shoulder the next morning.

Encouragement that we find in Hebrews 3:13 and 10:24-25 has a little different flavor than it did two weeks ago.  Encouragement came through people just showing up and helping.  It’s crazy how your whole attitude and outlook can change just by having someone next to you in a very hard time.  They actually said nothing to encourage me, they were just there laboring beside me.    I was thinking through all of the hours of labor that people saved me, and it was over a 40 hour work week.  That’s bearing burdens.  Thank you God for providing for me and my family through your people.

Who do you need to call today to encourage with words?

You may need to just show up and be there, not say anything, just to encourage…who’s the person?

God wants YOU to be the means through which HE provides for someone (see 2 Cor. 1, 8, 9).

I’ve been reading this awesome book over the last month with a few guys called You Can Change by Tim Chester.  If I had to compare it with another book the closest book would be Search for Significance on our resource list.  It’s all about pealing back the onion and asking/answering the why behind change.  Here’s a great paragraph on community’s aspect of the change process, check it out…

Tim writes on page 155,

“One of the great things about living as part of a community is that in community people walk all over your idols.  People press your buttons.  That’s when we respond with bitterness, rage, and so on.  And that gives us opportunities to spot our idolatrous desires.

God is using the different people, the contrasting personalities, in your church to change your heart.  He’s using the difficult people, the annoying people, the sinful people.  He’s placed you together so you can rub off each other’s rough edges.  It’s as if God has put us like rocks , into a bag and is shaking us about so that we collide with one another.  Sometimes sparks fly, but gradually we become beautiful, smooth gemstones.  Remember the next time some is rubbing you the wrong way that God is smoothing you down!  God has given you that person in his love as a gift to make you holy.  Sinclair Ferguson comments, ‘the church is a community in which we receive spiritual help, but also one in which deep-seated problems will come to the surface and will require treatment…We often discover things about our own hearts which we never anticipated.’”

Back to Rob, if you’re living in community you know what he’s talking about..unless you really believe that the problem in your group is someone else….  Let me know your thoughts.  Rb

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.  Proverbs 28:13

I was very encouraged last week by a visit to a men’s time over breakfast.  It was great to hear them confess and forsake sin and a to see mercy and acceptance from men who have a few years of mileage between them.  Here are the questions that they weekly ask each other.

1. What has  intimacy with your wife look like this week?  (Marrieds only)
2. What has purity looked like this past week?
3. What has God taught you over the past week?
4. Is there anything else big going on in your life?

Hey guys, thanks to everyone who came out to our training sessions last night.  I was so encouraged by the questions that people came up with last night in my class, Going Beyond the Supper Club, that i wanted to post them so all could benefit.  The talk was about driving for depth in your community and going after aspects in our life that are below the surface not just the symptoms.  Scripture uses the word “Heart” to define the inmost part of a person: his will, desire, emotions, feelings, the core of who you are.  So, if these questions seem different than ones you may be asking people in your community group, know that the context of these questions is going after biblical “heart”.  Hope one or two of the questions will help your community group go below the surface.  Rob

Here are great questions to ask around people in your community group processing issues with scripture:

1)What scripture this week is tearing out your heart?

2) How are you applying what you read this week?

3) How have you been meditating on scripture this week? (Ps. 1)

4)How have your feelings or emotions lined up with scripture this week?

5) How are you taking every thought captive?  (2 Cor. 10)

6) What is an area of your life that the Lord wants to free you of?

Here are accountability questions to ask:

1) Who did you hurt this week or who has been hurt by your actions?

2)Who have you asked for forgiveness this week?

3) What were some the feelings, thoughts, emotions that you had before you sinned?

4)What have you struggled with this week?

5)What is something in you that is unloving?

6) What has consumed you this week?

7) What scripture speaks into you situation this week?

I’ve wanted to celebrate this aspect of 4 square for quite some time now and today is the day.  I must always emphasize that 4 square is the official game of community, so with that being said, 4 square is the official game of community.  We, as community directors at Watermark, want to practice what we preach, and the desire to never be called a hypocrites fuels us to get our weekly “game in” at work; it has become our male bonding time.

In games, rules are everything, and to no surprise there is a whole website http://www.squarefour.org/rules , and 4 square community dedicated to the official play of this fine game.  It’s funny how much “gray” there is in what seems to be very black and white rules.  For example, check out this rule on serving:

“Serves are meant to place the ball fairly into play and must be returnable by the player in square one, generally taking its first bounce near the center of square one. As they say on playgrounds, “No blood on serves.”

My question is…”what’s returnable”.  It’s up to the discretion of the other 3 players.  You would find it shocking how disagreements and almost bloodshed there has been over the “gray” areas in the rules, and we all love each other and are paid to help people live in community.

Sound a little like community?  We have these guiding values in scripture (see some previous posts or click on resource tab), but there is alot of gray when you are doing relationships with others.   Love is the guiding principle (Matt 22).

But  here is the most celebrated aspect and virtue of 4 square:  THE SELF CALL

This will all translate to community in a minute, but the self call is just like it sounds.  Calling yourself out when you know you are out of bounds or when you know you have violated a rule.  It’s extremely hard because even in a game like 4 square, you want to win, you want to self-preserve, and be the victor.  When we walk in the flesh (Gal. 5) we operate in a similar way.  Here’s the translation…

There is nothing better in community then when someone demonstrates humility.  They come to you and confess their sin that they were “out of bounds”.  Like this, “What I did, what i said, was not how Jesus wants me to respond to you, will you forgive me?”

As a recipient, one of the best phrases you will ever hear is, “i hurt you, will you forgive me”, “i invalidated you will you forgive me”, I wasn’t gentle, kind, good, joyful, peaceful, loving, humble, (fill in the blank), when i did this to you, will you forgive me?”

There are plenty of passages on forgiveness like Matt. 18 (parable of the unmerciful servant), and going to be reconciled with your brother (matt 5:23-24), and confessing sin (james 5:16), but i want you to chew on this passage.

“And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹⁷And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” – Mark 2:16-17

One of the marks of a follower of Jesus is one who knows that their heart is sick and unrighteous (Jer. 17:9), and there is something freeing about being with people in your community that constantly affirm that they are sick and they are following the physician who is restoring life to them and making them well.  Do you see the connection with the self-call.  Having a proper view of yourself as a sinner who is saved by grace, but who continues to sin (until the resurrection), has a sense of humility that will seek out their brother to ask forgiveness or make the “self-call”.  They are healthy believers and people to live in community with.  When was the last time you made a “self call”?  When you sought someone out just to ask for their forgiveness?  Start with your wife…when?  Your community…when?  Something to chew on.  Peace out.  Rob

I’ve been doing a lotof thinking just around the topic of prayer and specifically how we pray.  Prayer tends to be focused around changing circumstances vs praying to conform into the image of Christ.  Just let that sink in for awhile… Think about how we typically talk about prayer requests or take prayer requests from our community of friends.  Typically it’s about asking the Lord to change something outside of us.

Here’s a few examples:  “My mom is sick, pray that the Lord would heal her”, “pray for my job, my boss is driving me crazy”, “pray that a buyer buys our house”, “pray that my brother would be saved”, or “pray for my relationship with my girlfriend around purity”.    Sound familiar?

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.-Romans 8:29

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18

So how do we begin to ask for prayer around conformation and as we lead people and teach them about prayer?

So, take the double fake “prayer requests” I listed above.  Think though how you would move peoples requests towards conformity prayer.

“My mom is sick, pray that the Lord would heal her”–> “Pray that I would believe that the Lord is Good (Ps. 100) even in the midst of mom’s sickness, and that the Lord would heal my mom.”

“pray for my job, my boss is driving me crazy” –> “pray that I would demonstrate patience (Gal. 5) and Contentness (Phil 3) and a love for my boss who feels like an enemy (matt. 5)”

“pray that a buyer buys our house” –> “Pray that the Lord would make me content even if no one buys our house and gives me peace (Gal 5)”

“pray that my brother would be saved” –> “Pray that my brother would be saved, that I would trust that only God can open his eyes (Luke 24:45), and for boldness on my part (2 Cor. 3:12). “

“pray for my relationship with my girlfriend around purity”. –> “Pray that I would find contentment in the Lord, that he would be enough to satisfy (phil 3-4) and that i would find life in being obedient to the king around purity (1 Cor. 6)”

I think you get the point.  Not that we shouldn’t pray for external circumstances, but our focus should be internal conformation.  The overwhelming model Paul gives us in his letters is not to get out of prison, which had to be miserable if you have ever seen a dungeon or ancient prison, but that the he would look like Christ in prison to those the Lord put in his path.

So, how are you doing modeling this?  How well is your group doing here?  Try asking this question next time you are taking prayer requests, “hey what do you think the Lord would like to change in you around the issue you just mentioned”.    Also, it will let you know people very well and where they need to grow.  It will drive for incredible depth.  Let me know what you think.  Rob

It’s been refreshing to hang out with our group link groups over the past few weeks just to remind me what’s it’s like to start a group with people that you don’t know and you’re not totally sure if you really like them.  I’ve been stuck in my own journey with our 2.5 year group and feel like I can draw deep from the “experience well” and how scripture is grinding on us to help us love each other.  We’re in the stage where more and more issues are “put on the table” or exposed that they’re “not on the table”.  Here’s an example of what I mean, then I circle back to what I’m learning about new groups.

TV is one of those areas in my life that I don’t have self-control.  When it’s on, I have a hard time turning it off, when it’s off; I’m constantly thinking about what’s on.  When I’m tired, I think, “I’ll just watch a little bit of Letterman”, then an hour goes by and I’m exhausted the next day.  Anyway, I was obsessed about finding the right TV last holiday season.  I’m a researcher, so literally 20 hours researching, looking at black Friday ads, etc. and the men in my group said, “hold on…you’ve been telling us that TV is an area in your life that kills your engagement with your family, you can’t demonstrate self control, sucks life out of you, why would you want to buy something that you feel like doesn’t help you engage your family or Jesus?”  All that to say that I was ticked.   The option of not buying a TV for me was not even “on the table”.  I was going to buy a TV; I just need help buying the right TV.  I drove away from that Starbucks, thinking…scripture would call me a fool (Pr 10:8; 12:15if I would ignore the counsel of those around me.

I didn’t buy the TV, the cable got disconnected, and I haven’t watched 1 minute of TV in my house since Thanksgiving. My connection with my family has been better than ever.  So in my group’s life stage it’s about “what is not on the table”?  Is the way you spend money, the schools your kids go to, your sex life (married), free time, etc.  That’s our life stage.

I always wanted to paint the vision for new groups as getting to a place to “what’s not on the table” and more and more I feel like that may be wrong.  It’s almost like telling my almost 4 year old son Jackson that Christ is calling us to die to ourselves daily and physically for his name’s sake), “if anyone wants to save his life he must lose it (Mt. 16:25)”.  He’s just not there yet, but by God’s grace we will get there.  Right now we’re talking with Jackson about God and being thankful for God’s provision.  You talk to groups, cast vision for groups the same way you would your child; it’s all about life stage.  So here’s my plea and vision for new groups (groups under a year)…

Plant the Tree.  15 years ago my friend’s dad told me something that I have gone back to over and over again.  Plant the Tree.  It had to do with a political decision that was the best thing for our country, but it would take 15 years to generate huge financial value.  So think huge investment with no payout for 15 years.  My friend’s dad said, “When’s the best time to plant the tree?”  I looked at him with a blank stare.  “15 years ago”, he said.  Still a blank stare because I know nothing about trees and didn’t know at the time he was speaking figuratively.  “When’s the second best time to plant the tree”, he said  with a pause, “Today”.

Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean,

but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox (Pr. 14:4)

So my ask is, are you willing to plant the tree today?  Put work in to dig the hole and plant the tree (commit to meeting together), and water the newly planted tree so it can survive the shock stage (start getting real with each other over time), and realize that if you don’t care for the tree, fertilize it and water it will die (you must nurture the group with the only thing that matters Christ-Jn. 15:5).  It may take years to get any shade, but are you doing the things you need to do to get there?

As a dad I can identify with the craziness that the holidays bring.

It all starts with great intentions.  The idealistic part of us desires to create memories, give to those in need, sit by the fire with loved ones contemplating our thankfulness and the eternal gift of Jesus our Savior. 

It quickly turns into a commercialized induced spending spree, trying to satisfy and keep peace with all family members and leaves little or no peace on earth.  

What happens?  These less than ideal memories can resemble something more out of Christmas Vacation.

This is where I realize that I need to notch down the idealistic expecatation but know that I can still create great meaning and memories for my family around Christmas.

With some planning and intentionality, a Dad Ready Christmas can truly reflect the spirit of the season and make memories for a life time.

Take a look at this site for a list of things to get your Dad Ready Christmas off to a great start;

http://blog.marshillchurch.org/2009/12/07/16-daddy-christmas-tips/