What have you learned since our last time?

Rich: I learned this in England. Out of the Wesleyan revival, 40 years later England was still a cesspool. Wesley’s journals reveal that he was discouraged that he had no impact. It took 100 years to see real change. By then the change was radical.

Tom: William Wilberforce was in parliament and came to Christ. He wanted to become a pastor but was encouraged to stay in parliament. He decided to end the slave trade and improve morals. One of the people he influenced was Josiah Wedgewood who was a potter and crystal maker. Wedgewood was moved to create a plate with a slave chained and said “Am I not a brother?” Wilberforce called these launchers.

Another woman at the same time by the name of Octavia Hill was a tenement owner. There were huge slums in industrial cities. Octavia saw students coming to school in bad shape and she went to their homes to investigate. She discovered the landlords of the housing tenements where not keeping the place up. She asked for one year to improve the tenement. She did so well, she ended up managing 10,000 units in her lifetime. She implementing strategies of humanity and compassion.

Eric: Churches have been mobilizing people around the idea of Extreme Home Makeover.

Jerry: Young people in secret city want to spend time with older people. WE can talk about these ideas and involving people in their community. It takes us long time for us to internalize these ideas and it takes others longer.

Eric: Churches have a desire to serve but they often don’t spend time thinking about how to be strategic. Churches need help in rallying to meet needs.

Tom: Sharefest was an idea of Little Rock Bible Church. We went in to clean up the schools and they were overwhelmed with what we did. This year we have three churches involved. There will be 1600 people going to 5 schools. We’ve linked with PTA’s and other groups. All of our church members will be working along side 20% of those who are not part of our churches.

Eric: Tom’s church won a service award. He would say that they didn’t do that much but the bar is so low that anything a church does is valued.

Tom: I got a call from a guy who called to said he wanted to plant a church in Boulder. He went to a service organization and asked what kind of church would they want to plant in Boulder. He heard from them that they should be like Calvary Bible because they serve people.

Axel: How do we deal with inner-focused pastors? Why did we read Linked?

Eric: Movement building is about influencing hubs. You might be tempted to influence your city by geography, but the relational map of the city centers around people of influence. Also knowing a little about a lot of things has greater value than knowing everything about one thing.

Chip: God has begun to give me a heart for our neighborhood. Randy Frazee’s books Make Room for life and the connecting church. Transformation can take place one neighborhood at a time.

Dan: When the frustration sets in with those who “don’t get it”, here’s what I do. We had a meeting of talking about frustrations. There was open and honest conversation. One guy shared that he is a child of alcoholic parents and he has difficulty trusting. Another pastor begins crying about how his dad left him when he was a child and is fearful of being abandoned by the other pastors. Another pastor talked about working more on his finances than on his ministry. Pastors don’t choose to get involved for many kinds of reasons.