I want to give you the latest update on Tiffany so u can pray.

Monday she had her staples removed from her head. Pretty non-eventful until Tuesday when fluid began to leak out of some of the staple holes. The neurosurgeon asked us to come in and ascertained that the incision was leaking spinal fluid. He then put 2 more staples into her head with no pain killer-yes, imagine a staple gun put on your head and getting 2 staples shot in-that’s it in a nutshell what he did.

We drove home and when we got home leakage began at two other places. The neurosurgeon told us to go to ER so off we went. They admitted her last nite (tues) and I got her settled in at ab 1 am. I stayed in a hotel nearby for a long nap. Today she had a 2-fold procedure: reopening the incision and resutchering it and putting a small tube in tiffany’s back to drain spinal fluid.

Here’s the issue. After so many surgeries, tissue does not heal as tightly, thus spinal/brain fluid can leak. They are hoping that within 3 days on this spinal shunt the newly tightened incision will have time to heal tightly. So, 3-5 more days in the hospital-tiff is in great pain tonight (we’d nite). sherryl and I will alternate soening the nite to help her.

If this does not work, another brain surgery to put a shunt in her brain.

Here’s how we need prayer: pray that her body’s healing properties will be strong enough for this incision tightening to “seal the crack in the dam.”

Thx
Charles

Sent from my iPad

Charles Stone | Senior Pastor
Ginger Creek Community Church | gingercreek.org
www.charlesstone.com | Blog: http://charlesstone.com/blog

Kevin Cashman wrote the book Leadership from the Inside Out: Becoming a Leader for Life. I highly recommend it. I’m reading it for a second time.

In one chapter he writes about managing change in an organization. His change mastery  shifts below apply to church leadership as well.

1. Focus on Opportunities vs. Problems
2. Focus on Long Term vs Short Term (don’t lost sight of your long-term vision in the midst of change)
3. Focus on Purpose vs. Circumstance (keep focused on your and your church’s purpose and values to avoid being mired in difficult circumstances)
4. Focus on Adaptability vs Control (control will only yield a certain degree of results; good leaders must remain agile, flexible, and innovative to sustain results over the long haul)
5. Focus on Service vs. Self (serve your leaders during the stress of change)
6. Focus on Listening vs. Expertise (effective leaders stay open and practice authentic listening to stay connected to others and to remain open to other innovative solutions)

Other related posts:

• Etch-a-sketch Church Planning

For more Help and Resources for Discouraged Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

Recently our church celebrated our 25th year anniversary. I’ve been privileged to serve as the lead pastor for six years.

Here’s how we celebrated.

Our creative arts team created a fantastic experience that told the story of the last 25 years in all three of our services that weekend. It included several video testimonies, several ‘best of’ dramas, and some of the church’s favorite solos through the years. I spoke for less that five minutes. I made the change ‘on the fly’ to can my 15 minute prepared message (a first for me) because I felt it would intrude into the moment. We finished the service with some incredible worship, some of the best since I’ve been here. We also held a picnic on Sunday afternoon that provided lots of fellowship time for former members to mingle with their friends still at the church.

I reflected on this experience and believe these five reasons justify regular celebrations, whether to celebrate major milestones such as a 25th year anniversary, or to celebrate small wins.

1. Scripture often tells us to remember God’s blessings. Celebration helps us do that (Ps 77.11)
2. Celebration helps people feel like they are part of a movement that is truly ‘winning’.
3. Celebration helps mitigate the message that our ‘success’ culture often breeds that we don’t measure up.
4. Celebration builds confidence in leadership that they are leading the church in the right direction.
5. Celebration taps that ‘made in God’s image’ part of us. God created us to worship and when we celebrate His goodness, we feel most fully alive.

So, our 25th year anniversary reminded me that as a pastor, I must lead our church to often celebrate our wins, even the small ones.

How do you regularly celebrate your church’s wins?

For more Ministry Tips and Resources for Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

I commissioned Barna Research, Lifeway Research, and Christianity Today to survey almost 2,000 pastors to discover what issues can cause a ministry or a leader’s passion for ministry to die. I based my latest book on those findings. You can download a free chapter of the book here.

It would do us well to heed Socrates wise advice when he wrote, “Know thyself.”

For more Help and Resources to overcome Pastoral Burnout, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

I’m listening to a fascinating interview on Focus on the Family’s Pastor-to-Pastor series between HB London and Archibald Hart.

They’re discussing how depression from pastoral burnout can lead to loss of vision, loss of ideals, an “I don’t care attitude,” and potentially result in moral compromise.

Dr. Hart describes the progression of steps to moral failure using what he calls the four A’s.

1. Arrogance: I can do no wrong, I can handle life myself, I don’t need anyone
2. Adventurous addiction: I get taken with excitement and become energized with what I am doing
3. Aloneness: I become more at risk as I cut myself off from others
4. Adultery: I turn to sex as the only thing that gives me a kick that can make up for what I feel I have lost

Listening to these four A’s caused me to pause to make sure I don’t go down that path. Often pastors and other spiritual leaders slowly move down the path of moral compromise without realizing it. That’s why I wrote the book 5 Ministry Killers and How to Defeat Them. The small, sub-surface issues we don’t see can lead to devastation in our lives and ministry unless we pay attention to them. The book shows how to become aware of these ministry killers and what to do to kill them before they kill us.

You can download a free chapter here if you’d like to check it out first.

For more Help overcoming Pastoral Burnout, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

Some of the kids in Operation Helping Hands

It’s exciting to see many churches embracing community and missional ministry more than ever. When I grew up, I can’t remember being challenged to go out into my community to be the hands and feet of Jesus to the poor and under-resourced. Perhaps that’s why it took me so long to personally ‘get it.’

The church where I now serve really ‘gets it.’ We are a church with a weekly attendance around 1,200 and after an intentional effort the last four years to become more missional, we’ve seen this fruit.

• last year we gave more money to missional causes than we ever gave in a year’s time
• 1500 participated in some way in local missional efforts, many multiple times
• 100 went on a short-term missions project overseas
• we just completed our annual Helping Hands project in the community and nearly 500 people from four different churches served

We even coined a term that has helped capture the spirit of our church: serving the Least, the Last, and the Lost.

So, what have we learned and what are some principles to keep in mind if you want your church to become more missional?

1. Find a champion. One of our pastors had a vision 10 years ago for us to become more missional. He has persisted for those 10 years.
2. Build missional ministry into your annual church objectives.
3. Keep the vision before the church often. Repeat it in messages. Encourage small groups to do missional projects together. Celebrate victories and tell lots of stories.
4. Offer multiple, small steps for your church. Stay persistent and don’t look for just one big thing to comprise the extent of your community ministry, although a big event can catalyze your church.
5. Develop partners. Find local city our community agencies that need help and offer to help them. We’ve worked with over a dozen city agencies, the local United Way,  the city of Aurora, IL and several other churches.

"Volunteer of the Year" Award

Persistence will pay off. This year our church actually won the community “Volunteer of the Year” award from the local United Way.  We didn’t apply for it in any way. Rather, the committee that makes those choices had seen our extensive work in the community and made the decision.

So, as you lead your church, consider how to be Jesus’ hands and feet in the community.

Some great resources:

• Ed Stetzer’s book, Breaking the Missional Code.
• Rick Rusaw’s book, The Externally Focused Church.

For more Ministry Help and Resources for Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

Although my kids are well beyond the teen years, I wish I could have given them this devotional when they were kids.

Daniel Darling, a friend of mind, provided me a complementary copy of his new book called, Crash Course, forming a faith foundation for life.

Although written for the teen in mind, I was encouraged and learned a lot through the short two page devotionals. Each devotional includes a short story or insight on a particular subject. Daniel then includes a ‘Bottom Line’ statement that encapsulates the major theme. His ‘Own It’ suggestion includes a small, but doable project from reading a passage to watching a movie that reinforces the theme. He also adds a simple prayer and a verse of the day.

In 100 days, the reader will understand what it means to be a follower of Christ in these five areas.

• Doctrine-knowing what you believe and why
• Decisions-how to make good choices
• Direction-what should I do with my life?
• Devotion-Staying true in a world of lies
• Delight-finding joy in a hard world

I highly encourage parents and student leaders to get a box of these books and get them in the hands of teens.

Daniel also wrote Teen People of the Bible.

PS-his website is one of the coolest, cleanest I’ve ever seen.

For more Books, Tips and Resources for Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

Do you ever think about the fragrance of Christ? What is it, what does it mean. And really, what DOES He smell like?

I once read one of those tear-jerker email forwards about a baby girl who was born severely premature and was not expected to live. Due to her immature little immune system, her parents were unable to hold her or touch her. As she lay there isolated in the incubator, webs of tangled tubing pouring from her tiny body, her mother fervently, desperately prayed that somehow, some way Jesus would hold her little girl in her stead.

This little girl miraculously survived and became a completely healthy, bubbly 5-year-old. One day, she was with her mother at her older brother’s little league game. The sky was darkening, and a rain shower was imminent. Her mother looked at the sky and casually commented, “Oh, it smells like rain.”

Her daughter crossed her arms, looked at her mother with furrowed little eyebrows, and said, “No, it doesn’t.”

Her mother then asked, “Well, honey, what does it smell like?”

She said, “It smells like him.”

“Who, honey?”

She calmly replied, “It smells like Jesus, when you lay your head on His chest, and He holds you.”

The fragrance of the Savior.

* * * * *

Many of you know that one of the ways we show Christ’s love to the women working in the adult industry are through gifts — gifts of fun, girly things like body sprays, lotions, scented candles. No strings attached. Expecting nothing in return. Because they ARE worth it.

Our prayer for each and every one of these gifts is that every time the woman smells the sweet fragrance of a lotion on her skin, inhales the scent of a candle filling her home, spritzes a body spray onto her wrists, that that scent will be a tangible reminder of Someone who values her, welcomes her, plans for her, and LOVES her. . . always, forever, with no strings attached.

What we hope becomes the fragrance of Christ.

Perhaps our Jesus does smell like the coming rain.

Or a freshly-fallen winter snow?

What if He smells like the mountains at sunrise, the air thick with pine tree and wetness?

Or the salty spray of the ocean off the rocky cliffs at sunset?

What if He is orange blossom and jasmine, lemongrass and lavender, basil and bergamot?

Or, what if the fragrance of Christ is something as simple as the scent of “Warm Vanilla Sugar” body lotion, intermingled with the fierce love and tender mercy of a couple of girls who go to these women and tell them, “You, precious woman, are insanely, infinitely, desperately, overwhelmingly, perfectly LOVED. We just wanted you to know.”

Related post: Strip-Club Ministry: My Daughter’s Story

For more Uplifting Resources for Discouraged Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

I’m a busy pastor and am committed to developing my walk with Jesus through several spiritual disciplines. One discipline I practice is a daily time with God when I read Scripture, pray, and journal.

Before I owned an iPad, my quiet time looked like this.

1. read my bible (the paper version), often reading several different bibles to compare translations
2. read a devotional from a paper book
3. journal with pen and paper and later I journaled on my Mac in a Word doc
4. pray through my prayer list on a Treo outlining program, when I got an iPhone I began to use it

Here’s what has changed since I got my iPad 6 weeks ago.

1. read my bible on my iPad using Olive Tree’s BibleReader program (multiple versions, side-by-side comparison, ability to hi-light, take notes, and cut and paste into another program)
2. read an e-devotional from one of the best bible study apps, Logos
3. journal on my iPad using a program called MaxJournal
4. pray through my prayer list using a program called PrayerLists

How this has improved my devotional life.

1. While not feeling rushed, having these tools all in one place has saved time that I can now devote to the actual spiritual exercise.
2. Reading on the big iPad screen using BibleReader is an incredible experience as I can view side-by-side 2 translations at once, can pull up commentaries alongside the text, can copy a verse and paste in into my journal, can hi-light in one color verses I’m memorizing and hi-light in another color a verse that stands out
3. MaxJournal gives a very nice layout, the ability to search, and the ability to use the on-screen keyboard or a bluetooth keyboard. Very cool.
4. PrayerLists provides an easy way to record prayer needs and allows me to schedule them on the days I want to pray for those needs.
5. Having everything in one small package makes it more convenient since I don’t have to lug around four things-bible, journal, devotional, and prayer list.

Struggles I still face.

1. To be honest, I still feel kinda’ guilty not reading out of a paper bible. Sometimes I feel like I’m not really reading the bible though the more I read from BibleReader, the less guilty I feel.
2. It is a bit of a hassle with the current iPad os to move back and forth between programs, but OS 4.0 will allow multi-tasking.
3. PrayerLists is not yet adapted for iPad but the developer is working on it.
4. At first it seemed too ‘tech-y,’ but the more I use this system, the more I’m finding this tool to be an invaluable help in my walk with Christ.

If you have an iPad, has it helped you grow? if so, how?

In a few weeks I’ll post my experience using the iPad in preaching.

Related posts: How Pastors can Benefit from an iPad

For more Help, Tips and Resources for Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite toys was an Etch A Sketch. If you’ve never played with one, it works like this. You turn the two white knobs in different directions to create a line drawing like the one in the picture. That was cool enough for us kids like me who lived in the pre-internet era. But the coolest part came when when you wanted to start a new drawing. A quick jiggle of the screen and the drawing would ‘magically’ disappear ready for a new picture.

What does an Etch A Sketch have to do with planning? It’s a phrase I coined during my recent trip to Nicaragua.

In six days our team held three 1-day training conferences in different locations in the country for over 325 pastors and their wives. Being a meticulous planner, I had created a well-designed schedule for each day. The only problem? My view of time didn’t sync with how the pastors and wives viewed it nor did it sync with how the three local pastors who sponsored the events viewed it.

I was literally forced to change our daily schedule every hour, sometimes as often as 5 times in an hour. For a recovering obcessive-compulsive, I was ticked. I had diligently prepared this schedule. We had lots to accomplish to finish at five each day. The speakers had prepared talks to teach. Our worship team had practiced songs to sing. But the people didn’t show up until anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half late. And they took really long breaks. Early on inside I was yelling, “What’s wrong with you Nicaraguans! Don’t you wear watches?”

But God graciously moderated my inner voice and attitude and I realized I could learn a lot from how the Nicaraguans treated time.

For me, time has always been a commodity I didn’t want to waste. I always felt that I waste time if I’m not always accomplishing some task or goal. I’ve also believed that people who are perpetually late aren’t stewarding their time wisely. Although the two previous statements are often true, the culture I’ve experienced in my five trips to Nicaragua has helped me become less ‘uptight’ if sometimes my time passes without any appreciable accomplishment.

I believe these Nicaraguan pastors, as a whole, value relationships over tasks, perhaps more than we do in the United States.

If you are a pastor, you are a busy guy or gal. I know because I am one. It seems there’s always more to do in ministry than time to do it.

But for me, I hope my Etch A Sketch planning experience will help me savor the relational moments that may show no immediate accomplishment. Perhaps Jesus had this thought in mind when he gently admonished Martha with these words.

… only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. (Luke 10.42)

Related posts: Strategic Planning for Dummies

For more Help and Resources for Pastors, visit Pastor Stone’s main site.