I am reading a book by Stan Tolers call Five Star Church and it has really touched me. The book is about making the church the best that it can be so that when guest come into the church they feel welcome and important. The Five Star comes from the term used to grade a Hotel. Five Star is the highest mark that a hotel can receive and those that receive such classifications are high end hotels where guest are pampered and taken care of at ever turn. These hotels are clean, and ever detail is seen to. Their employees treat the customers with respect and with courtesy and try and meet they every need. These are not the place you stay to save money but the places you go when you want to get away. Where the hotel is part of the get away or may be all of the get away.

What if a church was like that? What if we did church the way that these hotels do business? Many times whenever someone says business and church in the same breath people get upset but the truth is that church is a business. The different in church and regular business is that the Businesses need people to make money, which is the bottom line, whereas churches need money to draw people, which is the bottom line. The church is in the business of bringing people into the kingdom of God and not to pad the bank account. Both business and church are looking to expand and both have to do better jobs at relating to their customers or guest.

Did you know that more than 80 percent of churches in the United States have plateau or are in decline? The number one reason that American companies are losing business if poor service and this could be said about churches as well. We have to strive to become the best that we can be so that we can save some. Being a 5 star church is all about reaching the fullest potential that we can. Doing everything that we can to make sure that we are treading every guest with respect and doing all that we can to make their visit to our church one they will remember.

How do we accomplish this?

1. We have to intentionally strive for Quality

We have just hope that guest are greeted, or that everything is clean but we have to make sure that everything is to it’s best. We have to have a plan on how we are going to treat people that are new to our church.

2. We have to be perpetual about Quality

This is not a on month thing that we do but it is something that we must repeat over and over again. All ways looking to do better, all ways striving to be the best we can be.

3. We must invest in training and retraining.

We need to be trained in whatever area of ministry that we are a part of.

4. We have to make long-term goals.

We have to get away from just doing something to fill time, but we have look and see how is thing going to effect the church long term.

5. We must plan before and after every event.

Yes, it is important that we make sure that everything we do is planned out and thought about before we do it. But it is just as important that we take the time to discuss the event after it has happened so that we can make sure that the next one is even better.

These are just a few of the things that we can do to ensure that our church is a Five Star church. You can hear more of this on the website in the Sunday Night Fire file, last Sunday Night’s sermon.

Fighting the Enemy

Have you ever notice that when God is really moving and things are going the enemy all ways comes around. Most of the time in church work this happens during what I call the lulls. Every church that is growing goes through times where you spike and people are coming and things are happen but then there are lulls. Now a lull can last a long time if you are not careful but in churches that are growing most of the time the lulls can last for very short times. In those moments where things are coming together the enemy all ways try to stop the flow of God. The bible calls him a roaring lion because like a lion he makes a lot of noise, but also he prowls looking for someone that he can get into. As Christians we need to be aware of this and we need to do all that we can make sure that we are not the one that the enemy uses to stop the flow of the Spirit of God. If we resist the devil will flee.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Everyone! I love this time of year when the New Year begins. We seem to look at it like a new beginning and that is what it can be. I believe that 2011 can be one of the greatest years in the church’s history. Here at South Decatur 2010 was a record breaking year in may categories and we believe that 2011 is going to continue to climb as God blesses us with His presence and with growth. I am so excited to see what God will do. So this year make up your mind that you are going to be a better you in 2011 and do more for the Kingdom of God than every before.

What is Christmas to You?

One of my most fondest memories as a child was when I was twelve years old at Christmas. I had so much wanted a motorcycle for Christmas and I just knew this was the year that I was going to get one. I remember going to bed that night and hardly being able to sleep. The next morning I woke up early but at our house we couldn’t get up until our parents had woke up (they wanted to see our reaction). I laid there in the bed for what seemed like a year or two. Finally when my mom said come and see I ran into the living room only to find a few gifts wrapped up, none of them being big enough to be a motorcycle. I remember trying hard not to show the disappointment as I opened shirts and pants. Finally around the corner my father pushed out a brand new Suzuki 80 dirt bike. I can still remember the joy of that Christmas, my excitement, my gratitude, and pure joy of having this great gift.

Now as I am older and can truly understand the meaning of Christmas, I realize that there was a great gift that was given to me. A gift that will take me farther than that motorcycle ever did. Every Christmas Eve my father takes down the Bible and reads to us the story of Jesus found in Luke 2. Now to be honest as a child this was brutal because it meant that I had to wait to see what I was getting, but as I got older I come to understand that the reason we exchange gifts is not to get things. The reason we exchange gifts is to demonstrate the greatest gift that was ever given. The gift of Christ. As we exchange gifts we love to see the reaction of the person receiving the gift, we want their eyes to light up. As a father I come to think that my father must have been happy that Christmas morning as my face lite up as he come around the corner with that orange motorcycle. Yet when God gave us His most precious gift, His son, very few people lite up at His coming. There were very few that throw a celebration, and yet God loved us anyway. What an awesome God that keeps giving even when we don’t appreciate the gift.

This Christmas remember when you celebrate, it is in remembrance of the birth of a Savior.

Can we be Tolerant?

A couple of weeks ago on a Sunday night I preached a message called “Can we all Get Along?”  The message is on the Sermon page of the website you can check it out if you would like (www.southdecaturchurch.com). The context of the message was about tolerance. We live in a society that tells us that we should be tolerant of all people and that we should not judge people on anything that they do. A few weeks ago our president stood at the podium and declared that the United States is no longer a Christian nation, and though I believe that to be true, he went on to say that we should live in tolerance to all religions. Which got me to thinking what does the Bible teach when it comes to tolerance?

First of all nowhere in the Bible does it teach us to be tolerant. As a matter of fact Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1 that the cross is an offensive message. In other words the message of the cross makes people chose a side. When confronted with Jesus a person has to make a choice on where they stand and how they are living. There is no neutral ground. Jesus said John 14:6 “ I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”. For the Christian that is plain and simple and there is no room for anything else. Jesus is not just the way but He is the only way. How can you tolerant anything else? If you are a believer then you have to no that there is no other way to heaven but by Jesus Christ

Second if you are a believer then you have to feel the urgency to go and tell people about Jesus. You do not have time to tolerant anything but truth. The world is dying and we have the good news and if we sit around allowing people to believe a lie then we have failed to the most important then that we can with our faith. Share it. If we are truly living by the truth then we cannot in no way live in tolerance because if we do then we are saying that we do not have faith in what Jesus said. If Jesus said that He was the only way and He is not then all that He said cannot be trusted. But the truth is that Jesus is truth and therefore we must convince people that He is the way to eternal life. Peter said it when he said “Where can we go to find the words of eternal life”. We can’t be tolerant, we must show the Love of Jesus and save as many as we can.

The Day of the Lord

In 1 Thessalonians 5 Paul begins to share with the church about the Day of the Lord. He is talking to them about the return of the Lord and how that there will be signs that will come to us so that we will know when the time has come to past. Paul said it is like the changing of the seasons, no one has to convince you what season it is because you can see the signs of the season.  In Matthew 24:32 Jesus says that there will be signs like the fig tree. When the leaves begin to come forth you know that summer has arrived. The same things is going to happen before the coming of the Lord. What are the signs?

The Days of Noah

The Bible says that it will be like it was in the days of Noah. Noah was the preacher of Righteousness, and he preached the message but no one listened to what he was telling them. The thing is that they had been told this before. Enoch before he was taken to be with God, prophesied about the days of the Lord, and it was told that when his son Methuselah died that it would come to past. So Methuselah became the time piece by which the people knew that something was going to happen. But even when Methuselah was 969 years old the people did not heed to the message of Noah. Much in the same way that the world is not heeding to the message today.

Like the Days of Lot

In the time of Lot there was a moral decay that was taking place. Same sex marriages were legalized and people were allowed to do what ever they pleased as long as it did not hurt anyone else. We now live in a time where this legislation is in the fore front of our country. We live in a time where people believe that a man can do anything as long as it does not hurt anyone else. We live in the days of Lot. The signs all point to one thing and that is that the Day of the Lord is at hand.

For more on this listen to the Day of the Lord message at www.southdecaturchurch.com

Revealing the Secret

Did you know studies show that more than 80% of Americas population do not attend church on a regular bases. In a study done by a leading Christian research team, unchurched people were ask why they never or rarely attended church? 64% said that no one had ever ask them, and of that 64% more than half said “if a friend were to invite them they would go to church”. A large percent of people said they would like it if someone would take to them about spiritual things.

One of the greatest secrets in the world is the truth of Jesus Christ. The one thing that should not be a secret is just that because the church is not sharing the message of Jesus. Many times we come to church and we go through all the motions of worship and then leave the church only to be silent about who Jesus is and what he is doing in our lives. We might put a scripture up on Facebook from time to time but we never take the time to share the gospel with people in this world. We think about doing more after hearing the preacher tell us we need to but then that fades away as soon as Sunday dinner comes to the table.

The truth is that we the church need to Reveal the Secret and let the world know that Jesus is alive and well. We need to share our faith and invite people to the house of God. There is a world that needs Jesus and we have to be the ones that is sharing with them. So go our and Reveal the Secret that Jesus Saves.

Free Your Mind

At the end of Luke 5 we see Jesus having a discussion with the religious leaders of His day. Jesus gives them a parable about putting new cloth in an old garment and then a parable about putting new wine in an old wineskin. There is no doubt that they new exactly what he was talking about. One of the things that made Jesus such a profound teachers was His applied to use simple things that people could understand to explain complicated things that they could not understand. Here in this setting Jesus was trying to show them that the old, inflexible religious system that they had could not hold Jesus. Jesus was challenging them to come up to the level in which He was teaching.

Today in church there are so many people that are bound not with chains of trouble but they are bound within their own mind because of the way in which they think. The system in which we think and operate has us bound up so that we can not see the things that God is doing in our life. So many people miss out on opportunity because they think that they have to wait for the perfect and right moment to come alone. The truth is the most important moment of you life is happening right now. This could be the last moment you have and the perfect moment you are waiting for will never come. Because of the way in which we think we miss great opportunities that come our way. So many are bound in to thinking that they can have what God has for them if this does not happen this way or that, but the truth is that God is bound by circumstance of people. We waste so much of our life on things that make no difference, on things that have no importance to the purpose that God has for us. An example is, trying to reconcile with someone that does not want to reconcile with you, and rather than just moving on, people waste years worried about something they have no control over. Working a dead end job for years and missing opportunities to have something better.

We waste so many moments on things that are not important because we get into a mind set. The Bible says we must “Redeem the Time”. We do not have time to waste on things that do not bring us closer to the purpose that God has for our lives. We have to maximize the moments that we are given and that means we have to stop worrying about those things that we can not control. We have to stop living in fear of what people think and we have to work to do what God has called us to do. We have to free our mind. We have a chose. David said in Psalms 91 “I will rejoice and be glad”, I will means that he made up his mind that he would do these things. Paul says that we have to be “Transformed by the renewing of our mind”. We have to free our mind and make a change in order to go to the level that Jesus is calling us to. Only when we free our mind can we achieve what God has for us.

Why Youth Don’t Worship

In the PM service I preached out of Matthew 21 where Jesus goes into the temple and the children are there praising Him. The priest become angry and ask Jesus to rebuke the children for what they are saying and the way in which they are expressing themselves. Jesus replies that God uses children to show what true praise is all about.

So many times adults in the church complain or ask why don’t the youth worship God the way we did when we were there age and the truth is that if they are not then it is our fault. We have failed to show them how to praise and worship the Lord. As adults we have to understand that our children and the children of the church are going to follow our example and if they are not worshiping then maybe it is because they don’t see it happening in the church. In our society we have so many things pulling us in every direction. If we are not careful as parents we can give the wrong picture to our children of what is important and what is not. I mean we would never allow our children to miss a practice for the ball team or for some other event, but yet parents allow their children to miss church all the time. What is that saying? It is telling them that church is not that important.

As adults we are the example that our kids have to go by and we are not committed, faithful, and excited about the house of God why should they be. No wonder that we are losing generations of young people. We have failed to show them the imp0rtance of serving God, and the joy of serving the Lord. They need to hear us praise and not complain, they need to hear us celebrate and gossip, they need to hear us pray and not panic. When they do then they will follow and they will worship like these kids did in Matthew.

No Perfect People Allowed

In Romans Paul begins by talking to us about the Doctrine of Condemnation. He takes what would seem a spiritual shotgun and points one barrel in chapter one to the Gentiles and begins to show the sin that is there, and then before the Jewish reader can get comfortable he points the other barrel at them in chapter two. By the time that Paul gets to chapter three he has come to a conclusion “that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. Now if Paul would have stop there then all he would have done is what the law did, and that is show us where we all have failed, but Paul did not stop there he went farther. In chapter four Paul introduces us to the Doctrine of Justification and show us that through faith we can come to know God through Jesus.

Now it is here that Paul does something that is very interesting. He begins by talking about Abraham the father of faith as he calls him and that makes scents because of the faith and obedience that Abraham had in God. So much so that it was counted as righteousness to him. But then Paul bring David into the discussion. I mean why bring David? Because the truth is that when talking about Justification there is no better example than David. There is no one in the bible that demonstrates to us the two sides of man than David. David shows us the sides of faith and flesh and how God deal with them. David shows us that a man can be after God own heart. Now many believe that this refers to how David worshiped and praised God but I believe that God was referring to the fact that David was merciful and forgiven to people. I mean remember it was David that would not kill Saul even though Saul had been trying to kill him. It was David that would not allow the solider to kill Naple even though he was cursing the king. David was forgiven and merciful to people. That was the faith side, the Godly side of David. But then there was the side of David that look over a balcony and saw Bathsheba bathing and called her to him. Now you have to remember that David was king and because he was king Bathsheba could not refuse the king’s request. After sleeping with her, she became pregnant and now David is in a mess. Now what does this man that has been described a man after God’s own heart, do? He brings her husband Uriah in and believes that he will go into his wife and all will be covered up. But Uriah a loyal man says “I can’t go into my house and be with my wife, when my men are out there in the field” and he sleeps on the porch. So what does the King Do? He has him killed. D

Now this is the same man that spared the life of the man that was trying to kill him, and here he kills a man for being loyal to him. In David we see the two sides of David, the faith and the flesh. The truth is that we all have a war that is going on inside of us all the time, and there are none of us that are exempt from falling into a mess if we are not very careful. In the spirit we have the power through faith to reach high and be anointed to do great things, and yet we are still tempted in the flesh. The truth is when God saved us He did not remove us from the flesh and we still have to fight the desires of the flesh. That is when we can walk in the anointing one minute and be fighting the flesh the next minute. We can be on the mountain top in the spirit one minute, and fighting temptation the very next. Crying out to God to help us before we make a mistake that takes us 15 minutes to get into and 15 years to get out of. Because the truth is there are No Perfect People.

Now here is the good news. God can handle sin. If there is anything that the Bible teaches us it is that God can handle sin. Many times the church has a problem handling sin. I mean the church has become the one place where you can’t stand up and say I have made a mistake, without being scorned. But God can handle sin, and we the church should be a place where people can come and find forgiveness and restoration for the things that they have done. Because the truth is that there are NO PERFECT PEOPLE and we all have struggles and we all have fights that we are fighting everyday. Every person that you see in the church is struggling with something. If there is no struggle then that means that you aren’t saved. Because if you are saved then you are going to have to fight. When I was living in sin there was no struggle, I just did what the flesh wanted to do, but when I began to walk by faith that is where the struggle began. All of the sudden there was a war between my faith and my flesh. We all have our struggles and only by the grace of God can we make it. So the next time you are going through something just remember that we all go through something and if we can make it, then you can make it.