Life Groups

All the way back on my first day here at Hope Fellowship, I was asking God to give me some new ideas for connecting people to life groups. As we were developing the mission statement that I wrote about last time, one of our primary focuses was developing environments where people could Grow in their faith, as well as grow in authentic relationships with others. The best way that we have found to accomplish this is through Life Groups. Life groups are small groups of people who commit to meet together for a period of time for bible study and prayer. The big question was, how do we get more people to understand the benefit of being in a group, and take the step to get involved. As I started looking into our life groups more, I discovered a couple of things. First, the method we had in place for connecting people to groups was clumsy. We would provide newcomers a list of all the groups meeting and tell them, "Go find one." The problem with that method was that there was a lot of hit-and-miss. Just by looking at the list, it was difficult to tell what type of a group it was, how long it had been together, if the people in the group actually liked each other, etc. The other thing I noticed was that if someone happened to meet a group member and they invited them to the group, the chances of that person liking the group went up dramatically. The only problem with that method was that there was no way to ensure that everyone was going to be invited to a group. Last fall, I went to a small groups conference and listened to the way that Northpoint Community Church handled groups, and I started to rethink how we structured our groups. There were two things that they said that really seemed to make sense. One, was that groups that start together seem to have a greater chance of staying together, and two, that groups were more likely to develop authentic relationships when they stayed the same without adding new members, or were "closed". The second point was something that made sense the more I thought about it. Many times I have spoken to leaders who talked to me about the "revolving door" of their group. They would have new people come into the group, and more established people leave the group constantly. Because they had to be "open", and their name was on the list, they were constantly "marketing" their group. Sometimes this posed a problem if they were a good leader, and word got out, and they had more people that wanted to be in their group than they could handle. All of those changes made it difficult to actually achieve the goal of the small group, which was to build authentic relationships. So, with all of these things in mind, we've spent the last three months transitioning our Life Group ministry in a whole new direction. The good news is that we've doubled our involvement in Life Groups, and I've received a lot of great feedback as to how the new groups are progressing. How did we do it? I'll tell you tomorrow...

Love. Connect. Grow. Serve.

If you come to Hope Fellowship you will be very familiar with the words Love, Connect, Grow and Serve. But I realize that many of you who read this blog don't attend church here in Frisco, and might be interested in some of the things that we're doing here.

Over the last five months, I've had the opportunity to be a part of our staff as we re-defined our mission as an organization. In the fall, we had a staff retreat where we asked the question, What would a fully engaged attender at Hope Fellowship look like. We wanted to rewrite our mission statement so that it would be more explainable and attainable. We wanted those who call Hope their home church to be able to share with others more easily what our church was about. Not only that, but we wanted our mission to include not just WHAT we want to accomplish, but HOW we were going to go about doing it. So, each of the words (Love, Connect, Grow, Serve) also corresponds to the ministries that are in place to allow these things to happen.

I'll give you a snapshot here, and then I plan to expand on these a little more in future posts.

Love God.
Our weekend services are designed for people to experience God's love and allow us to express our love for God together.

Connect with Others.
People can connect with our church in membership, come to a Connecting Point event (more on that later) to join a life group, or other events that we will have throughout the year that give people opportunities to meet others.

Grow in faith.
Life groups are small groups of people (8-12) that provide an environment where people can develop authentic relationships with each other while growing in their relationship with God. (We have refined our strategy for life groups. I will be giving more detail on this later.) We will also expand our "Grow" area to include Discovery (a four week class for new believers), as well as support and recovery groups.

Serve the World.
People can serve by being involved in a ministry team at church, serving the community through a local outreach, or going on a short term missions trip. The church also makes sure that 10% of the money donated to the church is given back out to support missions.

Even though it sounds simple, it took us a lot of conversation and prayer before we felt good about making it our new mission statement. Now, every ministry is being organized with these four words in mind. Our children's and youth ministries are using the same language so we can create continuity throughout the church. It also helps us to be focused on what God has called us to do, and is helping us not to be sidetracked by things that may be good, but will take energy away from our primary mission.

I have really enjoyed the process that we have gone through in developing this. I was also excited by how willing our staff was to take this on, and how they are committed to seeing it come to fruition.

Cheesy G

I hate to say it, but I was seduced by clever marketing...

If you haven't tried one yet...go to Taco Bell and get the Cheesy Gordita Crunch! Excellent with Po' Boy Lemonade!

Po' Boy Lemonade

I was reminded of this when I ordered water with lemon at lunch today...

My first job out of college was traveling full time with a musical group called the Spurrlows. It wasn't very glamorous, but I was living as a full time musician and traveling all over the country. Every week they paid me $150 in cash. (Actually it was $128 after they took taxes out.) We were provided housing (usually a crummy motel room that I shared with 3 other guys), but were responsible for our own food. As you can imagine, $128 can go pretty quick if you eat out every meal. At the time I was also dating my future wife, Anne, and needed to save money for an engagement ring. So, I decided to take $75 every week and save it, and then live on the rest. I had to come up with some creative ways to save money. In my bunk on the bus, I had a small shelf. I would keep some small groceries there and eat one meal a day on the bus. That usually consisted of crackers with tuna, or crackers with goober grape peanut butter/jelly, or soup heated up in a electric mug thing. Then one meal a day I would eat out. But I realized that if I paid for dinner and a drink then my money didn't go as far. So, I got into the habit of ordering water with lemon. When it was served, I would drop a bag of equal in it, stir it up and call it Po' boy lemonade! The funny thing is, I still make Po' boy lemonade! Sometimes I actually prefer it to soda. Through the years, Anne and I have come to an, ahem, agreement. She is ALWAYS able to order soda at dinner. If I want to remember my Po' boy roots, I have to do that on my own. :)

Back in Time

It's been great having my parents in town for the last few days. Yesterday, we took a little trip down memory lane and drove about an hour south of Frisco to Waxahatchie to visit my dad's old stomping ground, Southwestern Assemblies of God University. Of course, it's changed quite a bit in the 50 years since my dad attended. But some things haven't changed...I was surprised to learn that the dorm my dad lived in is still there and being used. I mentioned it to John McKinzie this morning, and he told me he lived in the same dorm when he went there! I haven't been out of college as long as either of them, and all of the dorms that I lived in have since been torn down! (I guess I was a little harder on them than they were). I enjoyed meeting one of dad's college buddies, Earl Moore, who has retired and moved back. When they were in school together, Earl's father was the Dean of the school. It was fun hearing stories about how they would "bend" the rules together. Of course, sometimes the rules weren't bent. My dad tells that he went over to Earl's house to hang out one night, and came back to the dorm late. When he was asked where he had been, he said he had been at the Dean's house. His connections didn't matter that time, and he was forced to stay on campus the next day. But my favorite story of the day was when my dad was awakened by the assistant dean telling him, "Get your car out of the women's dorm lobby!" The dorm he was talking about is still in use, but it is no longer a women's dorm. There are stairs leading up to the front door. I guess that a group of guys had decided to pick up his car (it must have been small) and place it in the lobby of the women's dorm. He had to get up, go to the lobby and ease it down all of the stairs. Later in life he found out that the assistant dean was actually in on the prank.

Happy New Year!

I'm a couple of days late, but my new year's resolution is to get back to blogging, working out, and other good things. :)

We had a great Christmas, highlighted by Anne's parents coming in from Tampa. Papa saved Christmas for our family by securing a Wii from a crowded Target store early on a Sunday morning. I'm not sure who loved it more, the kids or the grown ups. Anne's brother Thad and his family came down to spend a couple of days with us...and challenge us to Wii bowling.

Sunday afternoon we drove up to Little Rock to stay at their house for a couple of days. One of the big highlights was driving to Pinnacle mountain state park for a little hiking. We were only going to go part way up the mountain but my daughter Samantha (9) and my nephew Wilson (6) would not stop. They were determined to get to the top. Of course, that made me want to keep going too, so the three of us finished the mile and a half trek together. I don't think Wilson was even breathing hard, which was amazing because the peak of the mountain was literally rock climbing. Coming down was actually a little scarier than going up because there were no guard rails or anything. I told Wilson I had to hold on to him tight or his mom would never forgive me. :) Here's a picture of Sami and Wilson at the top.

The lowlights of the new year included my USF Bulls getting trounced in the Sun Bowl. Thad was bummed that the Razorbacks got routed in the Cotton Bowl. Hopefully the Bucs can lift our spirits this weekend. :)

Now, I'm back to work getting ready for an incredible 2008. Our church is having a prayer emphasis this week, and as I was praying last night, I was reminded how good God is, and how much He has blessed me. I'm glad that I'm able to know Him, and this year I want to share His love with more people and in more ways than ever before.

Here's where I've been...

I know that a lot of you have been wondering where I've been for the last month. Well, Texas has been keeping me busy. At church, we just finished a campaign for an auditorium expansion and new children's building. Over the last month we had ten separate informational meetings, a leadership banquet, and a big service last Sunday outdoors under a tent so the whole church could be together at one time. It's been a great month, but I couldn't find the time or energy to write any posts.

The other major event that happened this month, is that the Lunsford family grew! We added a new puppy to our family! Gracie is a 2 and a half pound Yorkie-Poo that was born on August 24, 2007. We drove four hours to meet the breeder from Fredonia, Texas and pick her up. She is very cute, but we haven't decided if she's smart or not. :) It's taken her a couple of weeks to respond to her name, and she's not even close to being potty trained. Ugh! But, she's a lot of fun and she's making me get up early to let her out and take her for walks. Which is causing me to fall asleep earlier than normal. For those of you who know me, you may be surprised that we even got a puppy. But, our daughter Samantha has always been a dog lover. She has begged us for years to get one. I always told her that our house in Tampa was too small, and until we had a bigger house, having a puppy was not an option. Well, when we moved to Frisco, we were able to get a bigger house. Funny how she didn't forget our conversation. :) Anne and I decided this would be a good time to go ahead and get a dog, so we began our search. Anne found this one online and we fell in love with her. The girls love her and she's fitting right in.

Tomorrow, we are loading up the Honda and traveling back to Tampa for the Thanksgiving holiday. Pray for us because we'll be traveling overnight on Friday. I haven't pulled an allnighter in a long time. We are excited to get back and see our family and friends. For those of you from Grace Family, we are planning to be there for service this Sunday morning. Make sure that you look for us!