new mattresses for the girls

We spent this afternoon shopping for new mattresses for Hannah and Hope. We finally settled on mattress sets from Sleep Train in La Mesa. The girls enjoyed shopping for mattresses since they were allowed to hop on and off different beds. The bed frame that Hannah uses is actually the one I grew up on. When I was in early elementary school, I shared a bed with two of my older brothers. With five boys and two parents and only three bedrooms, there was more than a fighting chance that somebody would be sharing a bed. I can speak from personal experience that this bed frame is 100 percent sturdy.

kicking around a few ideas

I've been kicking around a few ideas about what should a LifePoint Christ-follower look like. In other words, after a person has been a part of our spiritual community for a while ... how would they be different? What would they value? Those are the sort of questions I've been kicking around (along with ... how do you get there!).

One thought that has kept creeping up is this: practicing our ABC's. I first heard a pastor from Dallas speak about this regarding his church. He said it was their goal to have every member practice their ABC's.

A stands for "Attend worship." I would hope that anyone who considers LifePoint to be their spiritual home would regularly attend our worship gatherings. It's in worship where we encounter God as a community, tell our stories, and reenergize. From the beginning of the Christian movement, Christ-followers have met for worship on a regular basis.

B stands for "Be in a LifeGroup." We believe that simply attending worship will not produce deep, lasting spiritual change. It's surely a good start but more is needed. We emphasize small, intentional communities of people because that is where friendships are developed and strengthened. So much of Christianity is relational -- just look at all the "one another" passages in the New Testament.

C stands for "Contribute to service." One of our core values at LifePoint is that the spiritual life is not a spectator sport. Christ-followers do not watch from the sidelines but look for ways to get involved. It is when we are serving others that we are most like Jesus.

So ... after a person has been a part of LifePoint for three or six months, I would hope they would be a person who is practicing their spiritual ABC's.

i made a new picture

This will probably show up on a t-shirt soon.

new direct mail campaign starts this week

Our second round of direct mail for LifePoint will hit mailboxes this week. We did our first round before our grand opening last year. We did the design in-house and have been working with Rush Printing to handle the printing and mail services. We will be mailing four different postcards to the same 25,000 households over the next four weeks.

Here are the final proofs (click the thumbnail to see a larger picture):

Card One

Card Two

Card Three

Card Four

the pied piper of capitalism

Have you ever felt like you were in a movie? I had that feeling yesterday as I was walking into the Wal-Mart at Parkway Plaza. As I approached the outside entry, I noticed there were streams of people coming from all directions -- just to get in Wal-Mart. We were all walking in single file and no one was talking. It made me think that Wal-Mart has become the pied piper of capitalism ... only it draws us in, rather than leading us out.

it was festive at cityfest

LifePoint sponsored a booth at CityFest yesterday. Matt Tuggle did a great job helping unload and setup everything ... at the bright and early time of 7:30. After eating a muffin together, I left Matt to bolt over to Mission Valley in time to do a few things before our worship gathering started. After that, Jonathan and I headed back over to CityFest to relieve Matt, Charles, and Cory.

I told Jonathan that working at CityFest revived my days of working at the Heart of Illinois Fair in Peoria. For three summers during high school, I had a job selling t-shirts at the fair. I worked for one of those rolling booths that travelled the fair and festival circuit. We had about 50 or so different iron designs and I learned how to crank out t-shirts as quickly as possible. I also learned how to shout out at people walking by. I wasn't quite as eloquent as the two guys who worked at the lemonade stand next door ... but I did have a larger vocabulary :-)

Anyway, back to CityFest. We created a booth that showed the various sides of LifePoint with the overall theme being, "If going to church was like going to Starbucks ..." We had a chance to interact with a number of people and had 30 people enter a contest to win free Starbucks gift cards. Not too bad for a crowd that wasn't exactly at CityFest looking for a church.

At the end of it all, Jonathan and I broke everything down, loaded up, and headed home. It's Monday afternoon and I'm beginning to recover.

Who knows ... we may hit Octoberfest next!

tomorrow is cityfest

We've been preparing for LifePoint's booth at CityFest for about three weeks. Our creative team has done a great job of designing a low-cost booth that is still very attractive. We are displaying various posters with scenes from around LifePoint. These include our worship gatherings, teaching times, KidPoint, and our LifePoint Cafe. I'm especially pleased that several of our featured artists are allowing us to have their CD's for sale at our booth.

Having a booth at CityFest is part of an intentional strategy of interacting face-to-face with our neighbors. We'll see how this one goes ... and then maybe we'll tackle Octoberfest in La Mesa!

an artist friendly environment

I met this afternoon with one of the musicians who has played at our LifePoint Cafe. She was bringing me a stack of CD's for us to put out at our CityFest booth on August 13. We had a wonderful little visit, catching up on how things are going with her career.

After she left, I reflected on something that has long been a passion of mine -- creating an artist-friendly environment at LifePoint. I would love to see LifePoint become a place where artists are not only welcomed but where they take up residence. A place where they return to draw spiritual strength and support. A place where their creativity is encouraged and challenged to have redemptive value.

I think of what the Belmont Church was in the 1970s and 1980s as artists from the Nashville area began attending. A more recent example would be Mosaic in Los Angeles. Both seemed to foster an environment where the artist felt at home.

I believe it's hard for most churches to create an artist-friendly environment because most churches are not artist-friendly. "Creative arts" in many churches simply means the music they use. It's not a holistic, all-encompassing approach.

As I think through the various churches in San Diego, not many jump out as "artist friendly" churches. Certainly not among artists in their 20s and 30s. The work of many of these same artists have very spiritual undertones. Unfortunately, they don't feel a need to root themselves in a faith community. Or maybe they tried and didn't feel at home.

My hope is that God will use LifePoint to become that kind of faith community. And we're getting there ...

the girls are back in town

Life has returned to normal around the Hensley household. Tonya and the girls flew back into town last Wednesday night and we're are slowly getting readjusted to each other :-) Honestly, it's really good to have the girls (all three) back around.

By the time I arrived to pick them up at the airport, they were already in the baggage claim area. I inched my way forward trying to hide from them. Hope was the first one to spot me and I tried to duck behind a column. She came running at full-speed and jumped right into my arms. We both stood there for about 30 seconds as Tonya and Hannah began looking frantically for Hope. When they finally spotted us, Hannah took off at full speed as well. Fortunately, I was able to brace myself for the collission.

So ... life has resumed a certain pace and little piles are reappearing around the house. Life is good!

a very good sunday

For the past six weeks we have been planning for an upcoming direct mail campaign. We were blessed with a donor who offered us matching funds and a friend who provided deep discounts on the postcards themselves. As part of the fundraising process, we solicited money from outside sources and planned for a special contribution at LifePoint.

Yesterday was the day for our special contribution. For the uninitiated, a special contribution is simply a second offering. This would be our first special offering since starting LifePoint last year. Doing a special offering during summer is a bit risky because of the unpredictability of attendance patterns. Yet, in order to do the campaign this fall we needed to have this offering in July.

So ... we began promoting it and encouraging people to make plans on how they could help. The Lord smiled down upon us. We had our largest crowd of the summer and the offering even exceeded my own expectations ("Oh ye of little faith," as the King Jim would say). We raised over $3,000 for our direct mail campaign -- in addition to what was given in our regular offering. And all of this from a group of 52 people, many of whom were first or second time guests!

As I introduced the offering, I mentioned that though small in number we are strong in spirit. That was certainly manifested yesterday. As we counted the offering, I was a bit overwhelmed by the faith and trust that people are beginning to have in LifePoint. God is indeed good.

sermon break ... an observation

I'm teaching this weekend from Acts 26 about the implications surrounding how we answer the question "What do you I believe about Jesus?" The chapter is essentially Paul retelling the story of his conversion before Festus and King Agrippa. As I was reading through it I was struck by this section:

"I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them" (Acts 26:9-11).

What struck me about it is this: the opponents of Jesus often take him more seriously than his followers.

the call to conversion

I've been doing a bit of reading to get ready for my next teaching series in August ("Who is My Neighbor?"). It is a series that will look at the local and global implications of being a Christ-follower.

One of the books I just picked up at Barnes & Nobles is "The Call to Conversion: Why is Always Personal But Never Private" by Jim Wallis. It was originally published in the 1980s but was revised in 2005. I didn't go to Barnes & Nobles intending to pick up a book by Jim Wallis. I've heard of Wallis throughout the years and mainly looked at him as a left-leaning wishy washy evangelical. He is the founder of Sojourners, a ministry described as "Christians for justice and peace." You can read his bio on the Sojourner website here.

But I must admit ... this book is beginning to change my opinion of Jim Wallis -- not that my opinion matters to him! In the opening chapters he describes the meaning of conversion and how it applies to both the private and public aspects of life. In essence, as Christ-followers we are enlisted into a new kingdom -- one that has very public manifestations. One of my favorite lines is where he is describing the self-centered nature of American Christianity and talks about our tendency to pray more for parking spaces than world peace.

I must also admit that it has been a pretty hard-hitting book. Not something you would expect from a wishy washy evangelical :-) I'm already thinking that I may make a few copies available next month at LifePoint. Who knows, I may invite Jim Wallis to come out and speak!

new directional signs for church

After having three of our directional signs stolen, we had to order new signs for LifePoint. I used this opportunity to upgrade our signs to something a little nice (and they even weigh less). Here's what they will look like:

pizza for breakfast, pizza for lunch, pizza for ...

Tonya and the girls are in Memphis to visit her parents. Meanwhile, back on the homefront ...

OK, I'm not necessarily your typical bachelor for the week kind of guy. I don't eat only off paper plates or use the same cup over and over. I have reused the same bowl and spoon for cereal, but only after washing them each time. I have shaved -- in fact, I've decided to grow my goatee back while the girls are away.

But I do find that it's easier to eat out than to eat at home. After last night's planning session for LifePoint's booth at CityFest, we had left over pizza. No one would take it so it went in my fridge. And ... I had cold pizza for breakfast. While out and about, I went to Red Brick Pizza for lunch. It was close to where I was going to pick up our new signs. And ... for dinner I will likely the rest of yesterday's pizza.

Cold cereal and leftover pizza. It's not that bad of a life.

two old ladies

I'm sitting at Cosmos, working on graphics for Sunday. Across the way from me are two old ladies, probably in their late 60s or early 70s. After discussing something (I'm not sure what it was because I wasn't listening THAT close) they started fighting like little kids. One threw down her paper and said, "If that's the way you're going to be then I won't even bother." I tried my best to conceal a smile. A part of me wanted to send them to separate rooms for ten minutes.

new series for july

I'm excited about our upcoming series at LifePoint. It's called "Who is My Neighbor?" and looks at our responsibilities as Christ-followers to make a positive difference in our community and world. In some regards, it's part Good Samaritan -- having compassion on those within our walk of life. It's also part global stewardship -- how our choices and actions affect a much larger area than just our immediate circle.

a disappearing act

Last Sunday, three of our directional signs turned up missing. Not simply misplaced but missing. Stolen. Removed. Evaporated. Three signs, three different intersections. So ... keep an eye out on Ebay for something that looks like this:

the gooses are coming

It's true -- The Gooses are returning to LifePoint for the next LifePoint Cafe on July 30 at 7 PM. They will be our first repeat artist to perform at a LifePoint Cafe. Why? Because I like them! I liken them to an acoustic version of the Barenaked Ladies. OK, they're not as good but getting there.

a few good things

Summer is an interesting time for churches, even more so for new churches. Churches experience what is often referred to as the "summer slump," meaning that attendance dips during the summer. My coach says it's even worse for new churches. We've experienced a bit of the summer slump at LifePoint but with many positive signs as well.

We continue to have first time guests at our worship gatherings. We've had guests at our last two events -- beach day and the 4th of July outing. As a church community, we thrive on relationships more than raw numbers. It's about making personal connections.

We're making positive strides towards our next direct mail campaign. We have been blessed by the generosity of individuals and churches (way to go Santee Christian Church!) alike. It's humbling to see so many different people support the LifePoint vision.

We had Steve Denney come out last Sunday and share with us the story of what God is doing in downtown San Diego. Steve and his team are preparing to launch a new church in the heart of the city. At the end of his presentation, we circled around him and asked God's blessing on his effort. We recommitted ourselves to being a church planting church.

As a lead pastor, it's easy to get bogged down with numbers -- they're all around us! But it's more important to be focused on people ... for it's people that matter most to God.

church planting thoughts

Did you know they have boot camps for people who start new churches? It’s true – Tonya and I attended one in Sacramento in January of 2005.

Granted, there are no drill instructors insulting your mother or having you drop and do push-ups. From what I can gather, the food at our boot camp was a bit better than the “other” boot camps you hear about.

At our boot camp, we learned the fundamentals of how to start new churches. During the first session, I can still remember our coach telling us, “We are not sending you out to start a church but churches.” “It’s not about one church but many churches.”

Since everyone in the room was a first-time church planter, it was a bit overwhelming just to think of getting one church off the ground! And here this guy was telling us to expand our vision even more.

I’m glad he did. To truly impact a city or region, we need an expanding number of healthy churches. To reach the most people, we need to be focused on starting a movement and not on building one large church.

Even though LifePoint is not yet one-year-old, I still want to challenge you to think in terms of giving birth to more churches than just ours. God may grow us to the point of sending out a daughter church or starting a satellite campus; he may simply allow us to partner with other churches who have a similar vision.

However God chooses to accomplish this, may we rise to the challenge and help change San Diego along the way.