aaron brockett

Leadership...

This past Thursday and Friday about 6 from our staff attended Willow Creek Community Church's annual "Leadership Summit".  This is an international 2 day conference focused on leadership mostly within a ministry context, however, they do have leaders from secular organizations in to talk.  Many of them happen to have faith so it is a rich experience hearing from both church leaders and those who lead large organizations.  The best way to describe it is a 2 day adrenaline shot of leadership principles.  The speakers and sessions that really jumped out at me were:
1.  Chuck Colson: Leader of Prison Fellowship
He's just written a new book entitled "The Faith" which covers the basic essentials of Christian orthodoxy.  Sounds kind of dry I know, but it isn't.  I read 75 pages yesterday and it is really great stuff.  I've always appreciated Chuck's writing and speaking, but especially his boldness.  He is 76 years old now and bolder than ever. 
2. Craig Groeschel: Pastor of Life ChurchTV.org
Craig gave us 4 questions to ask in creating environments for people to experience life change.  He is always gut-wretchingly honest, challenging, and humorous.
3. Wendy Kopp: CEO of Teach for America
After graduating from Princeton, she could have gone anywhere she wanted, but she chose to teach in one of the worst school districts in the Bronx after reading the statistic that only 6% of those students would graduate from college.  Today, she recruits some of the top graduates from U.S. Universities to spend the first 2 years after graduation teaching in some of the most challenging school districts.  Their mission is to offer every child a quality education.
4. Catherine Rohr: CEO of Prisoner Entrepreneurship Program (PEP)
Her story is truly phenomenal.  Catherine lived in New York City with her husband making $200,000 a year 6 years ago.  After becoming a Christian, she was invited to visit a prison with some friends.  What she saw broke her heart and an idea was birthed within her to start a program in which she would work with prisoners to teach them business and a trade.  She quite her job, they sold everything they had, and invested their entire life savings into the program that was almost shut down by the officials.  They literally gave everything to start PEP.  The results have been staggering.  The percentage of prisoners that go back to prison after being released is high.  With PEP the percentage of those being released, staying released, and living a productive life on the outside is even higher.  Even better, Catherine is excited and vocal about her relationship with Christ and shares it with the prisoners she works with.

Friday evening, Lindsay and I joined one of the small groups from church at Symphony on the Prairie over in Fishers.  Not being much of an orchestra person myself, I went for the company and the KFC!  However, it was very relaxing sitting outside under the stars listening to great music.  On the way home we stopped by Cold Stone for a treat--Mocha Mojo baby--speaking of which, I need to go run that off now... 

I Don't Want to be Edom...

It was really great to be back yesterday after being gone for most of the month of July.  Yesterday, Lindsay and I were talking on the way home from church and the entire morning just reaffirmed what we already know and believe about our church--far from perfect, TPCC is a really great church.  There was such and encouraging spirit among our people yesterday.  I love it when summer begins to wind down and everyone begins returning from their vacations...there is a sense of anticipation in the air.  I was also able to meet several people new to our church who were either traveling or checking us out.  All of them came from very different backgrounds and a couple of them have highly influential positions in society and culture.  It was great to talk with them about their faith journey as well as the sermon yesterday.  I believe our church is in a prime position to "influence the influencers" as well as serve the "down and out".

Speaking of the sermon yesterday...it was a challenging one in the sense that the application was so humbling for me personally.  Sometimes--O.K. a lot of the time--the application that comes out of a text causes me to do a gut-check over my own personal obedience to Christ.  As a communicator, the big question you ask yourself is, "am I already doing what I'm asking these people to do"?  A mentor of mine once told me that the big myth of preaching is that the "expert who has mastered this biblical principal shall now challenge others to".  While there is truth in this--and while we need to have integrity and authenticity in our message--we are all still in process and continue to deal with our own sin and inconsistencies.  The truth is that often God lays a message on our hearts, we communicate it and then He goes to work "pressing" it into our day to day lives. 
Yesterday we talked about the Edomites from the book of Obadiah, and how we often identify ourselves with the nation of Israel.  As Christ followers, if we can persevere through difficulties the justice of God will prevail.  While true, I also believe that we have more in common with Edom than what we may realize.  I've spoken with a couple of people since yesterday who have asked me, "So, do you think that there might be some sort of prophecy against America (similar to the prophecy against Edom) that we just aren't listening to today?  Is God's wrath coming against us?"
I have a tendency to feel both discouraged and encouraged by what I see happening in our world and culture right now.  Timothy Keller, who is a pastor in Manhattan, NY and who recently wrote a book entitled: "The Reason for God", spends the first part of his book explaining that our world is both becoming more secular and evangelical.  Each side wants to say that it is becoming the opposite of where they stand, but there is plenty of evidence for both.  I am discouraged by some things I see in culture today, but I am also encouraged by some things that I see.  I am encouraged by the fact that there are strong, Bible-believing Christians and churches who are seeking to make a difference in the world.  For all of the bad examples floating around, there are two more good examples (it's just that healthy churches don't make as good of news stories as church scandals). 
In short, I don't want to be Edom.  I don't want our church to be Edom.  I want us to be engaged in what God is doing in the world so that we can make a difference in the lives of people.   It requires a dramatic obedience to Christ and an irrational love for others.   And as we said yesterday, Jesus emphasized that these two things were a package deal--dramatic obedience without love will often lead to legalistic religion.  And irrational love without obedience will often lead to humanism. 

The Lost Boys...

Well, it feels like we've been away from Indianapolis for about 2 months--it's actually been 3 and a half weeks, but it doesn't seem like it.  We've had a great vacation and my study time has been productive, but we are very ready to get back.   On our way back from Colorado, we stopped at my in-laws house in Missouri for the weekend and attended the church we grew up in this morning.  Tomorrow we're headed to Branson for a day or two before heading back home to Indy.  I'm excited about some of the things happening at our church (TPCC), as well as some of the things that are beginning to develop during the Fall.  I'm so grateful for the study break that the church and it's leaders offer me each year.  I've been able to invest into my family, study, and slow myself down enough to hear from God.  It is such a gratifying thing to serve in a church that realizes that none of us have anything to say until God first speaks into our lives.  This summer has been a great time for that. 
Right after I return we're starting a 3 week series of messages that I'm looking forward to called "The Lost Boys".  We will be studying the 3 one-chapter books of the Bible that we don't often spend a great deal of time in--the books of Obadiah, Philemon, and Jude.  We rarely devote an entire sermon to these books, but they have some really significant things to say.  I've already written my sermon for Obadiah--one of the things that has been great is that I've had about 3 weeks to read and meditate on each of these books several times over.  I'm praying about what God wants to say to our church through these three short letters.  I'll see you this coming weekend!

Study Break...

Most days as a parent are incredibly rewarding.  It is an incredibly wonderful thing to go on a bike ride with your son and have a conversation with him, brush your daughter's hair before bed time and hear her talk about being a princess, and seeing your toddler attempt her first steps.  Most days as a parent are incredibly rewarding...today was not one of those days.  Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade being a father for anything and I love my kids more than anything in the world.  But they have their days when it seems as if they are trained in the arts of stress and migraines.  All day long they fought, complained, cried, spilled, tripped, screamed, defied, and pushed it as far as they could take it.  There were moments of goodness today, like when I picked my son up from his class at church and he made a stick figure to look like me (gotee and everything), or when I clipped my 3 year old daughter's fingernails on the back porch just before she went to bed, or giving my youngest daughter a bath.   Moments of goodness, but the rest of the day was high blood pressure.  Now that they are all finally in bed and my wife and I work away quietly behind our laptops returning emails and balancing the checkbook, I can feel God making me more patient and gracious...my blood pressure also seems to be going down.
(Well, scratch that last thought, I just heard my two oldest fighting in their bedroom...I better go check that out...)
O.K. I'm back, and so is my blood pressure!

This morning we got up and drove to Longmont, CO and visited Lifebridge Christian Church.  Rick Rusaw is the pastor there and I've been familiar with the church from a distance, but have never been there.  It was another great worship service.  I went to college with the Executive Minister on staff there--we hadn't seen each other in over 10 years, so we grabbed lunch with him afterwards.  It was good to catch up.
This past week has been really productive.  I've been reading and studying every day and was able to get sermon series' sketched out through the end of 2008, which is a really good feeling.  I've also got a few ideas for 2009, but haven't been able to spend much time with them yet. 
Last week I mentioned a book that I had just finished entitled "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan.  He is the pastor at Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, CA.  I would highly recommend it.  He addresses the issues of nominal faith and radical love.  I subscribe to Francis' podcast and listen to him preach regularly.  I really appreciate his ability to teach difficult truth with a subdued and compassionate tone.  It was a challenging read, not because the concepts are difficult to understand, but rather they are difficult to live out.  I found myself reading it and wincing at least once per chapter.  If you get a chance to pick it up and read it, let me know what you think.
Well, we will be in Colorado just a few more days before beginning our trek back to Indy.  I am so ready to be back!  I'm so grateful for this study time and for the time away with family, but it feels like we've been gone for 2 months.  We genuinely love our church and the people that we get to live and serve with.  This morning Howard Brammer, who was the Senior Pastor at TPCC for 24 years preached for the first time since his retirement last summer.  I really wished that I could have been there.  I'm looking forward to listening to his sermon and hearing how things went. 

Worshiping in Colorado...

I don't often use the word "glorious" in everyday conversation, but I can't think of a better word to describe our day today.  After being in Colorado for 2 days we have finally begun to acclimate somewhat to the altitude.  About 3 years ago when we were here I got altitude sickness and it was miserable.  So we've been drinking a lot of water.  The weather here has been great (70 degrees and sunny).  This morning we got up and attended Dillon Community Church.  We've visited with this congregation before while staying here, it is a good Bible-teaching church.  During the summer they have outdoor services every Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. in an outdoor amphitheater just right around the corner from our condo (pictured).  It was an incredible backdrop for a worship service.   There were 500-600 people who gathered for the worship service...when they asked how many of us were visiting about half of the hands went up.  It was an encouraging time, not only to be fed with great Bible teaching, but to worship alongside of other Christians from all over the country.  There was no child-care, no comfortable seats, no power-point, or coffee.  There was nothing flashy about the service, just an acoustic guitar and a worship team of 5 people, but I loved it.   It reminded me of Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley, CA (pastored by Francis Chan).  They are in the process of acquiring some land, but instead of building a big building, they want to partner with the community to build ballfields, trails, etc.  Rather than building a large worship building they want to build an outdoor amphitheater similar to the one we worshiped at this morning.  It's Southern California, so the weather will be nice most of the time, but there will be days when it's too cold, too hot, rainy, etc.  Francis really feels we don't always need to be comfortable when we gather together--I just finished his book "Crazy Love"--incredibly challenging as well as encouraging. 

After church we took the family to Ruby Tuesday (Lindsay and I love their salad bar and Turkey minis).  Then we came back to the condo and everyone took a nap--which is highly unusual to get all 3 kids down at once.  This evening Conor and I went on a hike on the Tenderfoot Trail that overlooks Dillon Lake and Silverthorne.  Conor took a piece of string tied to a carrot and set a "rabbit trap" along the trail.  He's fully convinced that when we hike it again later this week there will be a rabbit waiting for him.   Once we reached the top of the trail that overlooks the valley I tried to have a "father/son conversation" with him, but as a 5 year old those talks only go so deep!  I have a feeling they will be even more difficult when he's a teenager...
Tomorrow morning I'll be up early to study.  I think I'm going to do a 3 week series when we return in August called "The Lost Boys" which will look at the three books of the Bible that are only 1 chapter long (other than 2 & 3 John)--Obadiah, Philemon, and Jude.  We don't often look at these books, let alone hear a sermon on them, but as I've been reading through them they have much to say.  I'm also reading through the book of Ephesians.  Thanks to all of you who have sent me encouraging emails telling me that you're praying!

We're Back--and Gone Again...

We had a great vacation.  We got home late Saturday evening, just in time to be at church to introduce and hear one of my favorite preachers--Mark Scott from Ozark Christian College (www.occ.edu).  Mark was one of my professors in college and one of the first individuals to really ignite a passion within me for preaching.  He is one of the few people I know who is a scholar with Scripture and yet is incredibly humble and gracious.  I am always so encouraged by him.  I can remember sitting in an empty class with him in the afternoon watching one of my sermons that I would preach in class on VHS (that's how long ago that was) and he would gently, but directly critique and coach me.  It was a very cool honor to have him here preaching this past weekend at Traders.  If you were gone, then you missed out--catch it on the podcast.

Mexico was good and time with family was great.  Lindsay and I celebrated our 9 year wedding anniversary by having my parents watch our kids one night and we took a taxi to the small town of Puerto Morales and had a seafood dinner by the ocean.  That town was so laid back that I found myself being more relaxed than I've been in a while.  After dinner we strolled around the town square browsing through the local shops, practicing our Spanish, and eating coconut ice cream--it was a good anniversary!
On the way home we caught a connecting flight in Memphis which got delayed an hour and a half due to rain.  Just as we were  getting ready to take off, the captain came over the intercom and asked all of us to look out the window.  He said, "There is a bag on the tarmac and we just want to make sure that it isn't any one of yours--we'd hate to leave it behind--so if you could look out the window and if it is your bag, please tell a flight attendant so we can run out and get it on board."  I thought he was joking--but he was serious!  Couldn't you just send someone out to look at the tag and see where the bag should be going?  Anyway, good to be back...only to head out again.  Tomorrow morning our family is driving out to Colorado (it's about a 21 hour drive) for my study break.  I'm really looking forward to it for several reasons:
1) Colorado rocks 
2) My wife spent summers there growing up, so she is looking forward to doing some of the same things she did when she was little with our kids
3) What a great place to study Scripture and prepare for the upcoming year's worth of messages
4) Colorado rocks

I've already sketched out some sermon series ideas for the remainder of the year to take with me to pray over and flesh out.  I'd appreciate you taking some time to pray over me and for me as I pursue what God wants our church to hear and apply.  I've got all sorts of ideas, but I want to make myself completely available for God to speak into my life and our church--so pray--please! 
The next 3 weeks at Traders are going to be great as well.  This week Dave Jamerson, our minister of outreach is up and you will really enjoy Dave's passion for the Bible and for people--I talked to him yesterday about his sermon--he's pumped.
The next week, retired minister of TPCC, Howard Brammer will be back to preach for the first time since his retirement--I really wish I could be here for that.  I love Howard and I know his words will be rich and full of wisdom.
The final week of the series, Darren Messick, our minister of children will be preaching.  He has got some great stuff planned for the morning (he is a creative juggernaut!)

I love and appreciate our church, our staff, and our elders.  We've been here now 7 months and it is true that each time you go away and return, this place feels more like home.  I can't imagine being anywhere else but here.  Thank you for being the church--I'm excited about what God is doing here.  I'll be blogging from Colorado...but I'll try not to rub it in!

Vacation...

On Saturday our family is flying to Cancun to meet up with about 16 extended family members for a week long vacation.  Every other year since about 1984, my side of the family has vacationed together somewhere every other year.  This year, my grandparents (who foot much of the bill for us all to go) are celebrating 80 years of life, 60 years of marriage, and 20 years of retirement.  They may be 80, but they still get around like they are years younger. 
Two years ago while on this trip my grandfather and I went deep sea fishing.  When I was growing up, he would take me fishing around local ponds and lakes.  I can remember catching up to 80 fish with him in one day.  We would go back and fillet all 80 fish and then have a big fish fry.  Great memories.  He has always wanted to try his hand at deep sea fishing--so we went 2 years ago and he caught a 65 pound marlin and I caught a 70 pound marlin...

I think we might try to go again this summer...I'm gunnin' for a great white this time around!

I've spent most of today tying up some lose ends around the office and sketching out some ideas for sermon series for the remainder of the year.  It takes me a little while, but once the sermon writing engines are started and running it's difficult to shut it down.  There are some potential ideas that I'm throwing around and have been talking to some of the people in the office about that really excite me.  If I can take a framework of ideas with me on study break, then it will be much more productive to begin adding some "flesh" to those ideas while we are in Colorado next month on study break.
Our guys here on staff have got a great series planned here at Traders for the upcoming month called "Family Vacation"...I'm really looking forward to listening to it online while traveling. 

Cardboard testimonies...

I love our church... Yesterday we wrapped our eight week series on Character Assassins by talking about the uncomfortable subject of lust.  We concluded the service with "cardboard testimonies".  If you were here to see it then you know just how powerful the experience was.  If you weren't here, we had about 25-30 people who came out at the end of the service and held up a piece of cardboard with a sin or struggle from their past or present written on the front of the card...they then flipped the card over to communicate how God has worked or is working through the situation.  I've heard a ton of feedback from people on it.  As I am decompressing it this morning I think there are several reasons why it was so moving...

1.  It gave people permission to be real.  One comment that I heard from several people was that they had no idea that someone else in the church had or was, struggling with that issue.  The more open and honest we are as a church, the more willing we will be to lean into the Holy Spirit.  It sent the broken person sitting out in the crowd the message that this is a place where you can belong regardless of the junk in your past or present.

2. It provided a platform for people to tell their story.  Given the fact that the "fear of public speaking" is the number one fear among most people, the odds of hearing everyone's story up front isn't very good.  What I love about this medium is that almost everyone we talked to was willing to share their testimony on a piece of cardboard.   I talked to a man this morning who  said something that really stuck with me--he said, "Everyone in that room yesterday could have flipped a piece of cardboard." 
Translation: everyone has a story and this is a method that is incredibly vulnerable, yet not so far out of people's comfort zones that they aren't willing to do it.  Nobody had to worry about tripping over their own words.

3. People were connecting with each other afterwards.  It "shrunk our church" so to speak.  People who were sitting out in the crowd sought out the people they saw on stage to express appreciation or to share a similar story.  It produced an environment for community, which is something that our staff and leadership have on the forefront of our minds as we continue to grow larger as a body--we've got to create smaller environments for people to connect. 

I am so glad that we have such a healthy community of people here who are willing to tell their story while pointing to God as the ultimate agent of hope and change.  I love our church...

Father's Day...

Life is grand.  It was a great weekend--the weather was good enough to take the fam swimming and to break out the grill.  We also had some of the best ice cream I've had in a while.  Edy's Summer Peach Pie--simply amazing.
Yesterday I did something I've always wanted to do--I rode my motorcycle out on stage before my sermon.  We were talking about the "assassin of macho (pride)" and we thought it would be fun to use the bike as a great way to introduce what we were talking about.  Our creative team did a great job setting up the stage for this with lights, fog machine, and music.  During first service when they cued me to go ahead and ride out I couldn't get the bike started...so I was fumbling around in the dark trying to figure out what I was forgetting to do.  Sure enough--I didn't have the key turned!  Really macho I know...
We had some friends of ours from Kentucky visit yesterday and we got to have lunch with them after church...really good to see them again.  (I know Chris reads the blog so let me give a shout out to him...)  I had a good father's day and my kids gave me the above picture in a frame for my office.  Today my son kept asking me if it was still father's day...I told him, "of course it is."
This week and next I'm trying to get caught up before heading out for vacation on June 28th and before leaving for my study break in July.  We've got a great message series planned for July with some of our guys here on staff.  This coming Sunday we're wrapping up the "Character Assassins" series that we've been in for 8 weeks.  Usually, when I do a series that long I'm sick of it by week number 6, but I've really enjoyed the preparation and study for this series and our team here has done a phenomenal job with the creative elements.  We've got something very cool planned for this Sunday to wrap up the whole series.   
I'm pumped about some of the things going on at Traders right now and am really looking forward to the Fall.  It seems like each weekend I meet several more young couples who are new to our church.  I'm honored to be a part of this.

What I'm Reading...

I'm sitting here in my office early Monday morning after getting up at 5:30 to play basketball at 6:00.  Crazy I know...I feel great right now, but I am fully expecting to hit a wall around 1:30 this afternoon. 
We had a great weekend.  Friday is my normal day off and so we took the kids to eat lunch at McAlisters (great sweet tea) and then went shopping.  On Saturday Lindsay took the kids to a birthday party so I had some uninterrupted time with my one year old daughter, Kennedi.  I think that was the first time that she and I have been able to spend any time together without one of the other kids around--she's great--and she's started giving kisses which is even more great.
It was good to be back at Trader's Point yesterday.  Sometimes preaching feels really awkward and disjointed and sometimes it just flows.  It's always a guess for me as to how it will go.  Some Sundays I feel fully prepared and then get up there and stumble all over myself or I just never feel like I am able to engage with people.  Other Sundays I feel like I need a few more hours of prep, but then it goes beautifully.  I'm learning my rhythm and how to put myself in a position mentally and spiritually for the Holy Spirit to speak.  Yesterday was one of those days where I enjoyed every minute of it.  I had a short week and not much prep time, but I felt good about it (of course I wasn't one of the ones listening to it so maybe everyone else felt differently:-)
Every now and then I get asked what I'm reading...I like to read more than 1 or 2 books at a time in order to avoid "setting my leadership sails" to the book I happen to be reading at the time.  It keeps things balanced.  So, here's what I'm reading...

The English Standard Version Bible (ESV)
I got turned on to this Bible by one of my former professors several years ago.  It has the readability of the NIV, but is more accurate with some of the Greek transitions.  I usually read this as part of my preparation for preaching...I'd love to start preaching from it someday.

Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be)
It seems like once every few weeks I get asked the "emergent" question.  I'm beginning to think it's because I'm a young leader who pastors a church without wearing a tie.  One of the authors of this book is my age and pastors a church as well--I have a feeling he gets asked the same question.  I've appreciated those in the emergent camp and their desire to build a bridge to culture.  However, in crossing the bridge I think they've left a few things behind.  Mark Driscoll, the pastor at Mars Hill in Seattle, WA does a pretty good job talking about the different streams of the emergent movement on his podcast.  Along with Driscoll, the authors of this book have a reformed theology and consistently sound a bit harsh.  However, it's still good stuff.  If you're still wondering where I stand...I think we all need to be emerging, but not necessarily "emergent".

  The Reason for God
Tim Keller is the pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhatten, NY.  It's an urban church that is reaching the New York elite and intellectual crowd.  They have 6,000 people a weekend in a place that isn't normally thought of as being church-friendly.  There isn't anything flashy about Tim, but he's got a great mind and he's able to think through and teach complicated issues.  He also isn't afraid to tackle some of the biggest questions concerning Christianity.  I wish I was as intelligent as he is...

The Tipping Point
This is a fascinating little book about trends and social behavior.  It's a page turner and keeps you engaged.  It has a lot of relevance for creating synergy and momentum in a church or ministry.  It also gets you asking if you are a "connector" or a "maven"--read the book...

The Shack
The ladies in the office are going nuts over this book.  When a group of ladies raves about a book, I am not usually inclined to read it myself--however, Eugene Peterson says it has the potential to do with this generation, what Pilgrim's Progress did for it's generation--so I'm intrigued.  The author of this book is also going to be at Catalyst this year in Atlanta.  So I'm borrowing a copy and taking it with me on vacation--I'll let you know...