Twitter and church

I wrote this in response to a blog post at The Digital Sanctuary, thought I’d share here.

I was definitely following your Twitter feed that day, mostly cause I was glad I don’t deal with SoCal earthquakes anymore (although I miss a lot of other aspects of Cali…). Anyway, more to your point on the connectivity of Twitter, I’m seeing it take off in my church as we get folks on the Twitter bandwagon. I was hearing exactly the complaints you mention, “Who cares what I’m doing?” But in community, we all care. Not that you just went #2, but where you’re traveling, how work is going, what interesting things you’re reading or discovering online. In just a few weeks I’ve gotten to know several people much better through Twitter. And when we’re talking face to face it’s a stimulus for conversation so the relationships expand beyond 140 characters! On a professional level, I’ve made connections through Twitter that are allowing me to take trips and get insider access to churches and leaders that would have never happened any other way. Because of email and Twitter I’ve gained an incredibly valuable mentoring relationship and been able to create a mini-conference for me and my team at one of the most dynamic churches in the country; all of these happening face-to-face. Twitter has opened the door for face-to-face relationships across the country. Anyway, good stuff.

@BenEige

Develop and grow

Ephesus is moving forward during the Summer of Shift (just coined that term!). But as I’ve stated before, that’s church planting! But we’re growing, good things are happening. A big evidence of that happened this past Sunday. As all the faithful reader(s) of this blog (thanks Mom!) know, our third child, and first daughter Reese was born last week. That being the case, it was the first Sunday I’ve missed Ephesus since we’ve started. I had a really good excuse not to be there, but it was still very strange for me. Instead of adjusting to the new person in the house, I was anxious about how Ephesus was going to go. Now understand me, I was not at all concerned that it wouldn’t work without me or that Jason wasn’t going to a great job (which I hear he did and awesome job!) or that the team wasn’t ready to take care of business. I was just anxious about not being there. But the team took care of business. Reports back to me is that everything went really well, the Ephesus team was on it. We also had the as many adults in attendance as we’ve had all summer. I also just heard from an outside source that some folks were there this Sunday and it was just what they were looking for. For a leader and a pastor to hear those kinds of reports from a church and team as young and as new as ours is such an encouragement to me. My desire is always that team will be developed and leaders released. I know I’m called to guide, direct, train, release and of course preach! But to really succeed, it has to be able to function without total reliance on the leader. I guess I’m writing this as an encouragement to myself, because my biggest personal challenge in life is that I’ll grow and expand my abilities as a leader. God deserves nothing less from me as I pastor this church. But at the same time I’m always trying to figure out what I need to do better and try and do it. I’ve been told since I was young that I had leadership giftings and abilities and I would do this and that; I’ve always said people only make that comment to me because I’m loud and obnoxious. Being a leader that is visionary, strategic, and effective is so much more than speaking well in front of a crowd. I’ve realized that about myself for a long time and am on the constant journey to improve and grow into the leader God desires for me. Sometimes that’s been painful, and many times I doubt where things are at, but fortunately (at least in some ways!) God also made me stubborn.

So here I am, reflecting on this young church that can operate without me for a Sunday or two and again I’m challenged to grow. If the team can do this then I have to grow as a leader to keep pushing them and myself so that we impact Charlotte with Jesus. I’m excited because I’m stepping out in ways to accomplish that. In just a few minutes I’m meeting with Tyler Jones at Vintage21 in Raleigh for the second time. I met him for the first time a little over a month ago after I was challenged by something I read in the 4 Hour Work Week (challenging on some levels, but overall I’m not looking to lounge around the rest of my life as hip as the new rich may be). It was one of the most encouraging and challenging meetings I ever had. So I pushed a little bit and got a second meeting. Rode the train to Raleigh today to make it happen. Can’t wait to see what happens. My questions are almost exclusively leadership related. I’ve been exchanging emails with Cynthia Ware, challenging me to use technology to expand my leadership and our reach while keeping the message central. Then at the end of September, Foursquare blessed me with the opportunity to spend a week with Wayne Cordeiro in Hawaii. Pastor Wayne is one of the premier church leaders in the world and he could be in the middle of Iowa and I’d still be excited about going (Hawaii doesn’t hurt). Then I’m turning right around and heading to Mars Hill Church in Seattle. This time I get to take Casey! Through all this I hope to get sharpened, inspired, humbled and pushed in how I lead and direct the vision God has given Ephesus Church for Charlotte. 

Wow, God’s doing some very cool stuff, I guess I needed to write all this down to be reminded about all of it and realize how much He’s working. Why do we allow ourselves to be so blinded to His work around us.

Here she is!

DSC02876

Originally uploaded by g8rben

Welcome to the world Reese!

Marriage, submission and all that fun

Today at Ephesus I’ll be teaching on Ephesians 5.22-33. This verse seems to stimulate a lot of thought and discussion as it speaks to wives submitting to their husbands. Often the reading stops there, everyone gets ticked off and says the bible is old-fashioned and out of touch. There’s much more to the story including the huge responsibility of the husband and the depth of the marriage relationship. I’ll be touching on all of this today, but I wanted to point everyone to a great, in-depth dissertation on marriage on all of its levels. Baker’s Dictionary of Biblical Theology provides this dissertation with all the Scripture references you could ask for. I challenge you to read through it all.

Great series on design in ministry

Check out Cynthia Ware’s series on design as she interviews a designer right in the thick of things.

The first baptisms at Ephesus

We had our first water baptisms last Sunday! In true church plant style it was in our backyard with an inflatable pool with duct tape on it to keep the water out! I’m all about excellence, but sometimes it’s just fun to revel in the reality of our youngness….Anyway, here’s some video from the event. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

The Ephesus Office begins to take shape

The Ephesus Office begins to take shape

Originally uploaded by g8rben

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Baptisms and beyond…

Yesterday was a pretty phenomenal day at Ephesus Church. We had classic church plant baptisms in our backyard in an inflatable pool. I was thinking and praying about the baptisms before I headed to church yesterday evening and felt like that was a huge step for our young church just as it was a huge step for those being baptized, setting us up for the next phase. Then last night….Seth led a phenomenal worship set. The music was absolutely amazing, but it was so obviously authentic and Spirit-led. I was challenged as to how to transition from that amazing time of worship into a sermon. God spoke to me in the back of the room and I realized it all tied together. The message was from Ephesians 4.7-16 on maturity and growth. I realized it was right where God wanted us to go. Worship is amazing as we honor God with music and singing, but we can also have the tendency to want to “camp out” in worship and the euphoria it often brings. While not wrong in and of itself, it’s also not the whole package of our Christian faith. God desires for us to worship Him and He blesses us in the process, BUT he also calls us to growth and maturity, so the sermon was the right follow-up to an amazing time of worship. I had a blast with the sermon last night. I got up on a couple of soap boxes and really felt like God was directing much of my words to Ephesus last night. MUCH of what I said was not in my notes, which always seems to make it better stuff. To top it off we had our best attendance since moving to Area 15, on July 4th weekend no less! Needless to say I’m on a little bit of a high today!

Crazy Riley