Adrian Cole

New Covenant - Be Thankful and Proud

New Covenant, we have something to be very proud and thankful for. This year at Annual Conference we have four individuals that are in varying stages of their pursuit of a call and career in ministry. Some churches may never have an individual that enters the ministry. WE HAVE FOUR!!! All of these people come from our congregation. From left to right are Mark and Susan Whitley, me, Julie Conrady, and Don Vaught. Mark was commissioned this year as a four year Probationary Elder. He will be ordained in four years and he is currently serving as pastor of the church in Waukomis, OK. Susan will be commissioned next year and she is the pastor of the church in Drummond, OK. Julie was commissioned as a Deacon and will be ordained next year. She serves as Minister of Christian Education in the United Methodist Church in New Canaan, CT. Don was ordained tonight as an Deacon in the United Methodist Church. He serves as the director of the Oklahoma Conference of Churches. These wonderful people are a product of the ministry of New Covenant. Be prayerful, thankful and proud.

Oklahoma United Methodist Annual Conference

The Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church in Oklahoma starts today. Each year it rotates between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. This year it is in Oklahoma City. Click on the Oklahoma Conference website for details and service times. http://www.okumc.org/ Try to make one of the worship services. It will be held at OCU's Freede Center and St. Luke's UMC. All evening worship services will be held at St. Lukes. Bishop Greg Palmer will preach. He is president-elect of the UM Council of Bishops. I will be attending conference all week.

Nothing But Nets

The Methodist Church has teamed up with the NBA and other partners to address a world problem - Malaria. The first time I was ever out of this country I visited India for a month. In southern India we slept under mosquito netting because of the threat of getting bitten and then contracting malaria. Malaria kills more than ONE MILLION children a year. For $10 we can provide a mosquito net for one family with education on how to use the net. Go to http://www.nothingbutnets.net/ to learn more about the problem and about our church's efforts to help save lives. We are going to be taking an offering this morning for "Nothing But Nets!"

Deepening Your Effectiveness

A week ago today Sam Bass, Shelley Johnson, Melanie Hummel and myself attended a workshop in Tulsa called "Deepening Your Effectiveness" (Sam is not in the picture because he had to leave early). The workshop was conducted by two friends of mine that I first knew from Ginghamsburg UMC in Tipp City, OH back in the late 90's. Dan and Claudia were on staff there and they were working on and in discipleship. I had lost connection with them over the last few years but last fall we hosted a conference here at NC for the Oklahoma United Methodist Church called Building Disciples. One of the surprises of that conference was Dan and Claudia. They were presenters and they came to talk about discipleship. In the years that we were disconnected they have been working to help churches clarify the process for people of discipleship. What a need and what a gift!

"When a church neglects to offer clear direction, people begin to guess and try to figure out their own course of action. They connect with a class here and serve there. They try out this event and that opportunity. They reason that a little of this and a little of that just might result in spiritual growth. They eventually group together with other directionless travelers exploring the same path and hope it will lead to their spiritual destination. Before we know it, the church is filled with numerous people groupings, each moving in a different direction." (Deepening Your Effectiveness, page 143) 

God is using Dan and Claudia to help churches (help us) be clear about what we say we are about. Are you clear about our mission? Their book is a great read! Pray that God uses us to clarify for others what His plan is for us all. Shelley Johnson has been asked to put together a team to work toward this goal. Be in prayer.

Farewell and Thank You!

Yesterday was Ron Newhouse’s last day on the job at New Covenant. Tuesday was Andy Morrison’s last day. Tuesday the New Covenant staff had a party for Ron and Andy and then we took them out for lunch. Ron has been appointed to a staff position as Associate Minister at the Methodist Church in Graham, Tx. Andy and Katherine moved back to Colorado Springs where Katherine will start graduate studies in counseling. Andy is going to be doing event coordination for Youth Life. Each one of these individuals made a contributions to our lives and to the Kingdom. Ron has done a wonderful job directing Congregational Care here at New Covenant. He has helped direct the work of the Nurture Team (New Covenant Life Team) with Jamie Crouch and Janet Battles. I have appreciated his hard work. Andy and Katherine have been involved in our College and Young Adult ministry and discipleship. Andy lived with us for a year before he and Katherine were married. Andy has also worked with Marvin Nelson in Outreach by delivering "thank you" packages to visitors.

When I was director of Rebound, Inc. in South Carolina I had 141 employees. I expected them to be productive the first day on the job (by productive I mean generating revenue).  Church work is different. The economy that we work in is one of relationships. Our productivity has to do with building trust, authenticity, and cooperation. The revenue that is generated is not always easily quantified. It is about helping others live the life God calls us all to live.

I remember one of the first new staff people we hired years ago. It had not been long since I had left the private for profit world of the health care industry. I had an expectation of this new employee that they would start making things happen (being productive) the first day. At about the six month mark my frustration had risen to a boiling point. I called the then not so new employee in for a visit about productivity. I learned a great lesson that day about church work. I explained to her my frustration about her lack of progress and then she gave me an education about the church work environment of limited resources, low commitment, volunteers, no support staff, etc.

I have seen staff come and go at New Covenant. All of them have gone through the first few month feeling confused, frustrated and some disoriented as they learn names, build relationship, recruit help and volunteers and learn the culture of this church. Every church has its own culture and personality just like each individual has a unique personality. It takes time to develop trust and to learn that culture.

We will miss Ron and Andy. I wish them well on their journey of faith. I know wherever they are they will be making a contribution to the kingdom. I truly believe that when God calls someone to leave our staff he already is calling someone to come here and serve. Pray for your church staff. They work hard and they have a God breathed vision for the future of this church. Pray that your church leadership will find those that God is calling to come and serve here. Have a great weekend. AC

Bank Robbers and Hospitality

March 21, 2007 The Journal Record said, “Security cameras captured the image of a bank robber casing another Oklahoma City bank (The Spirit Bank on N. May) Monday just minutes before he committed the crime up the street (at Chase Bank also on N. May), law enforcement authorities said.”

This past Friday I stopped by Spirit Banks on North May to see Trevor Kelly who is a member of New Covenant. Trevor serves on the Pastor-Parish Relations Team of our church and is president of the Bank. When I walked in the front door of the bank the Tellers at the same time said, “Welcome to Spirit Bank, can we help you.” I told Trevor that the hospitality of the bank employees was impressive. He said that the friendliness and hospitality of the Tellers is what makes the bank successful.

He said that as a matter of fact in March a bank robber entered the bank and was so flustered by the friendliness of the Tellers that he turned around and walked out. Trevor said that the robber came back two more times and each time the hospitality of the employees put off his robbery intentions. The power of friendliness and hospitality is amazing. The second time he came back the Tellers were suspicious of his intentions and they circulated his picture throughout the Spirit Bank network. The third time he showed up they called the police. Just before the police arrived the robber left and went down the street and robbed the Chase Bank.

Today, in the first service the Kessler family joined our church. They said that when they moved to Edmond they visited several churches. In the other churches they visited no one recognized that they were visiting or greeted them. When they came to New Covenant they were so warmly greeted and welcomed that the hospitality of the church was the deciding factor in their joining our church!

In Dan Glover and Claudia Lavy’s book “Deeping Your Effectiveness” they say that high impact hospitality is what breaks down the barriers of a skeptical culture and visitors who may be cynical of the church.

Our Outreach Team and Greeters do a great job of welcoming our visitors. They are always in need of more volunteers. Pray about becoming apart of our outreach ministry by volunteering some of your time on Sunday as a greeter!

The Heart of Worship

This is one of my favorite worship songs. When we sing it, God speaks to my heart. But do you know the story behind the song?

When the music fades

and all is stripped away

And I simply come

Longing just to bring

something that's of worth

That will bless Your heart

I'll bring You more than a song

For a song in itself

Is not what You have required

You search much deeper within

Through the way things appear

You're looking into my heart

I'm coming back to the heart of worship

And it's all about You

All about You, Jesus

I'm sorry, Lord, for the things I've made it

When it's all about You

All about You, Jesus

King of endless worth,

no one could express

How much You deserve

Though I'm weak and poor,

all I have is Yours

Every single breath

The song dates back to the late 1990s. It was written by Matt Redman, a UK Christian artist and worship leader. It emerged from a period of apathy within Matt Redman's home church, Soul Survivor, in Watford, England. Redman's congregation was struggling to find meaning in its worship and music.

"There was a dynamic missing, so the pastor did a pretty brave thing," he recalls. "He decided to get rid of the sound system and band for a season (I believe it was three months), and we gathered together with just our voices. His point was that we'd lost our way in worship, and the way to get back to the heart would be to strip everything away."

Reminding his church family to be producers in worship, not just consumers, the pastor, Mike Pilavachi, asked, "When you come through the doors on a Sunday, what are you bringing as your offering to God?"

Wow! Three months with no band, or music, or piano, or organ, or guitar. What would that be like for you? Maybe this is the acid test about our motivation for worship? are we consumers, or followers of Jesus? Are we buying a product or are we laying our lives before God as an offering?

Last Sunday in the sermon I made the point that if we come to the place in our lives that we worship the gift instead of the Giver, we have made the gift an Idol! The gift becomes our god.

Worship: The Continuing Frontier, Part 3

Why should we be concerned about this? Because I believe that the bible teaches us that the church exists for two fundamental reasons: 1) to reach people for Jesus Christ (Matt 28:18-20, Mk 16:15-16, Lk 24:45-49, Act 1:8, etc.), and 2) so that we can be Jesus to each other (see Matt 22:37, and reference to the "one another" passages e.g. John 13:34 and to being the body of Christ e.g 1Cor 12, etc.).

When we hear the biblical call to reach others and when we understand that today worship is the primary way of reaching people this understanding helps guide our direction. We all have preferences regarding style of worship. The question I have always tried to ask and answer is: Does what we do in worship reach people for Christ? Are we building up the body of Christ? and Are we growing?

If we are not reaching people and building up the body, and growing, what do we do? I think we have to try something different. I have always believed that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Things change, programs that once worked stop working, worship that once connected has grown old. This is no ones fault. Things change. The world is changing. The cultural values change every 5 year. What do we do?

Act 15 is a great model and a great lesson for moving through tough issues. In Acts 15 the church is face with some heavy questions... Should the new believers, who are not Jews, be required to not only believe in Jesus but also practice Jewish customs? The people who were trying to answer the questions and move the church forward were Jews. They had grown up practicing Jewish customs. They had ownership and they had opinions and preferences. This was a huge question.

The church gathered the leaders, they extended hospitality to one another, they gave witness to what God was going in their mist, they discussed the question, they let the Holy Spirit lead them and they came to an understanding. Was the agreement accepted by everyone? Probably not. We don’t know, but we see the result of the decision. We are here today because of what they decided that day.

Someone in one of the comments mentioned something about “the direction we are going”. There has been NO decision about any change in direction. We all need to continue to put Jesus first in our heart and desires, pray, keep discussing the questions and the options and let God lead us forward. These are incredible days for NC. We have a lot of capacity (space), we have NO debt, we have a great staff, we have wonderful volunteers who do ministry, we have a great opportunity, and with God’s leading our best days are ahead of us. Let us seek His will together! Amen.

Worship: The Continuing Frontier, Part 2

Church researchers have identified that one reason for the shift in the culture and the overall decline in attendance in Sunday School and Worship is because of the growing focus in our population toward consumerism. Consumerism has grown to be about individualism and comfort i.e. "I want it may way" and "if I don't like it, I will go somewhere that feels right to me." (I won't launch off in a discussion about consumerism unless you want to hear more.)

Some churches have addressed the diverse wants of our population by targeting a specific group or generation within the population and offering one style of worship. Examples of this approach would be Ginghamsburg Methodist Church in Tipp City, OH or Life Church here in Edmond. A lot of the churches that offer one style are new church starts where the founding pastor is still the leader. Churches that have had multiple pastors, a long history and come from a traditional background have found addressing the worship issue challenging. The way we at NC have addressed the issue is by providing two styles of worship.

I hope that you understand that even though we have two styles of worship each style is "relative". By that I mean if you talk about "traditional" worship you could be talking about high church, very formal worship or a get down "gospel" choir. The same is true with contemporary. I find that what defines the true meaning of these terms is how each generation understands and views them. If I ask a college student what contemporary worship is I get one answer. If I ask a "baby boomer" the question, I get another answer. One way of asking it is by asking people what kind of music they listen to the most? I thought about starting this blog on worship using the old star trek line of the "final frontier" but I thought that not everyone who reads this would understand that. Or, It would be like me referring to Napoleon Dynamite in some way, which is very generational and others wouldn't get it.

This discussion raises questions. Our contemporary worship service has a very diverse group. I try to listen to all ages and generations in our NC community. We have offered a pretty consistent style of worship in the contemporary service over the past two years. I hear some segments of our community say that they like it. I hear other segments say that they feel it is stale and needs to be changed. Has the one style "contemporary" approach run its course? Can we still do "contemporary" with a "one-style-fits-all" approach? Do we need to continue our approach of offering more diversity by having more worship services with different styles?

How should our church do worship today? And, what is the purpose of the Church? Let me tell you, I think and pray about this stuff all the time. Why?

Worship: The Continuing Frontier, Part 1

I want to thank the people who have commented on our worship from last Sunday and over the past several Sundays. I hope to continue the dialogue. Over the next few weeks I am going to write snippets regarding my perspective of worship. "Snippets" because if I write too long there is a danger they won't be read.

Worship has been a complex and confusing event for churches over the last several years. Up to the mid 60's the primary way the church reached people was through the Sunday School. Friends would invite friends to attend their Church starting in the Sunday School. They would develop relationships with other people and then they would attend worship. Usually by the time they attended worship, membership was not far off. You could visit a Methodist Church in just about any city in this country and know that you were in a Methodist Church by the style and design of its worship service. It was pretty much all the same.

During the 60's Sunday School began to lag and the primary entry into church shifted from Sunday School to Worship. People who were "looking" for a church, first visited worship. If they liked what they experienced they came back and then, maybe after several Sundays, they would visit a Sunday School class (hopefully because someone would have invited them). They would develop relationships with people in the class and then think about joining.

But that shift has also changed over the last several years. Not only did Sunday School lag but so has worship. Since the 60's mainline churches have experienced troubled times. Here is a quote from a group called "The Christian Post" and the article is "Membership Declines in the United Methodist Church (http://www.christianpost.com). "The decline in membership marks a longstanding trend within historic mainline Protestant churches. For the last three decades, millions flooded out of these mainline churches, including the Presbyterian Church U.S.A, the American Baptist Churches, and the United Church of Christ. On average, mainline churches have lost about 10 percent of their members every five years." (The Internet has many places to find info like the above. I don't know anything about the Christian Post group. I googled "Church Statistics" to find this info. The story is the same wherever the data is from but the Methodists have done better overall.) The question is why the shift? More about that in part 2.