Questions about our teaching team????

Our Orchard Teaching Team met yesterday. We meet once every two weeks to work together on the teachings that we will bring to our church family on Sunday mornings. It is fun and, I believe, healthy for our congregation to have multiple voices speaking God's truth to our congregation. I love our teaching team which regularly has 7 teachers and a couple of regular subs--Ed, Mike, Alice, Doug, Tim, Kurt and myself!

When I travel and meet with other church leaders, our teaching team is the most often asked about part of our ministry. Many churches tell me that they are hoping to move in this direction. But, having a high trust teaching team that is willing to share the pulpit (if we used one?) can be a challenge. A part of each of our meetings this fall has been a time for us to build trust between our teachers. It can be hard because we don't really spend a lot of time together and we are very different people. It's working well and I believe our congregation benefits from different voices with different passions and life stories.

So, how does it work? We outline a teaching series together and in general agree what we will teach from God's Word and what our congregation needs at this point in their journey. At that point, each individual teacher takes that information and develops their own teaching. Jonny Rogers helps us package the teaching series in a way that we hope will be sticky to our congregation. We hope and pray that our teaching team is helping each person in our congregation grow.

What about favorites? I think it's ok to have a favorite teacher or two. It's natural that one or two of our team would be most helpful to you. I'm certain that each of our team is someone's favorite. What's really important, though, is that each of us is open to God speaking to us from His Word brought by any of the teachers. When you listen to a teaching live or on-line, be sure to listen for God's voice much more than the human voice of the teacher!

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Pictures from BASIC outdoors!

Take a look at these three pictures of taking BASIC outdoors that tell more of the story I spoke about in my last blog post! God is good, he is active and he is at work in student's lives.

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Bright Lights at UNI Homecoming!

Last week was UNI's Homecoming--always a big event here in Cedar Falls. It was a tough game with a great outcome. I want to tell you about Thursday night on campus.

Our College Ministry Team and their leaders decided to take our Thursday night BASIC event outside in order to be "salt and light" on homecoming week. The spot for the event was between Lang Hall and the President's House.

It was a beautiful night (thank you God!). The team pulled a generator with a flood light on a large pole and pointed this light from up high to the stage area. As it got dark this light served as a metaphor for what was going on. The light lit the stage area and the stage area lit up this night with God's truth. Students walking from campus to "the hill" couldn't help but hear and see this Christ-centered event.

There was singing, a teaching, a prayer walk and soft drinks served at the top of "the hill" and sandwiches (made by our Chuckwagon) served at the bottom of "the hill." The team have told me that many great conversations about faith and life took place on this beautiful homecoming evening. Some students walking by even iniated the conversations. I believe this is exactly the kind of ministry that Jesus would want his church to do.

Sometimes, I'm so proud of what our teams do in the name of Christ! I love the heart of so many of our staff and volunteers!

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Monday Night Lincoln Center Leadership

On Monday night I was at the Lincoln Center Leadership Team. Sometimes I think of Lincoln Center as an isolated merger that is "out there in Grundy County." But isolated is not the reality. Rather, they have become "fully merged" very quickly!

Here's a partial list of how this small band of Christ-followers are already merging within the ministries of Orchard Hill--

6 people attended the Global Leadership Summit

4 people participated and raised funds for the Iowan's For Africa Marathon Team

3 people traveled with Route 55 Ministry to Inspiration Hills for work trip

3 people are participating in our Emerging Leaders class at Grundy Campus

5 men are attending the Grundy Men's Ministry

Several people are registered to attend the Spiritual Gifts Discovery Class

1 young mom is attending the Grundy Mom's Ministry which now meets at the Lincoln Center site.

This merger with Lincoln Center was definitely led by God and has gone better than I could have ever dreamed. Again, I stand "amazed and perplexed" by the work of God! (Acts 2:12)

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God's Word in the Hands of Children!

A couple Sundays ago, my grandson Charlie got his Bible as an Orchard Hill second grader. Thinking of him walking across the stage to receive his very own Bible, as a gift from our church, really touched my heart. As Doug Tensen mentioned at that service, I still have the Bible I received as a kid from Orchard Hill on May 21, 1967. It's a treasure to me. I'm so please that our

I was in a meeting where we talked about giving age-appropriate Bibles at this years Christmas Store in Walnut Neighborhood. I couldn't help but think about what a powerful good way this is to use some of our resources. God's Word put into the hands of children who are eager to learn.

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Amazed and perplexed by growth!

Our Route 55 Mission Team (shown above) left for Inspiration Hills Camp yesterday at noon. Twenty-five to thirty team members (I'm not sure of exact number) plan to serve the camp in Northwestern Iowa. They will do all kinds of maintenance, cleaning up and other tasks.

I am amazed and perplexed again at the growth of this ministry to our oldest folks. I'm so inspired that people who are in their 60's, 70's and 80's are ready and willing to follow Christ into serving the world beyond our walls. Jean Gedlinske has done an amazing job of leading this ministry and now she has a new staff partner in Jennifer Van Gent. Yea God!

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Oops...it's been writer's block!

I've had writer's block for the past two months! I've been negligent with my blogging. I apologize and regret not writing about all of the "amazing and perplexing" things God has been doing within and beyond our church family. I missed opportunities to celebrate many things in the last two months:

Caravan and Rocky Mountain High where students made commitments to Christ and lives were changed.

The Global Leadership Summit where 412 leaders received 2 days of excellent training challenge.

THE GATHERING at UNI's Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center where 2,057 of our church family gathered in one place to worship God and get motivated to serve Christ this fall.

The many start-up of our fall ministries.

So, I will beat myself up or get down on myself or even make a lot of excuses (although that would be my tendency!) I will simply give myself a do-over and a fresh start! After all, that's exactly what Jesus came to give us. He came to give us a fresh start. He came to provide forgiveness for our sins and our failures. He came to help us forgive ourselves, stand back up and keep living for Him.

I think I will do that!

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