I have my turtleneck on, my tights and I ready to head out to get on a plan that arrives in New York by 12:18. I hope the weather isn’t too cold! If you pray say a prayer for me, I’m doing my seminar on Saturday on the book I am writing. So much information, so little time. But the Lord just keeps telling me in His sweet calm voice to be myself and speak from my heart. That is what I intend to do. 231 people registered as of Tuesday. I’m honored that people would come out to hear what I have to say. So if you pray, pray that God will use me, that I speak boldly and that HIS will be done and lives are restored and sistahs make a decision to get back up again.

’till I return…

This is one of my dearest and closest friends. You see her here (the one who gets the report from the doctor) doing what she would never do before…dance. But there is something about coming out on the other side of Breast Cancer that makes you face fear in the face and take on any challenge.

I am so proud of my girl, Betsy.

Watch I Never Lost My Praise in Faith Videos  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

 1) Less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church - half of what the pollsters report. There are approximately 330,000 churches in America; out of those churches approximately 17.7% (52 million) of Americans attend church on an average Sunday.

2) American church attendance is steadily declining.

• Evangelical 9.2%
• Catholic 5.5%
• Mainline 3.1%

3) Only one state is outpacing its population growth. Hawaii.

4) Mid-sized churches are shrinking; the smallest and largest churches are growing.

• Churches under 50 and over 2,000 are growing
• Average attendance of Protestant church: 124
• 1,250 mega-churches in America/one emerges every three days

5) Established churches, 40-190 years old - are, on average, declining. New church starts reach more people better, faster, cheaper than existing churches.

6) The increase in churches is only ¼ of what’s needed to keep up with population growth.

• 3,000 churches close every year
• 3,800 new church starts survived
• Net annual gain: 800 new churches
• Net annual gain needed to keep up with population growth:10,000 new churches

7) In 2050, the percentage of the U.S. population attending church will be almost half of what it was in 1990.

• US Population in 1990: 248 million/20.4% church attendance
• US Population in 2050: 520 million/11.7% church attendance   (HT)

Discover more surprising facts in Dave Olson’s The American Church in Crisis

Today my hubby preached at our church’s Weds service and I have to say he left me with this big nugget from the Word…He preached on the “crumb” aspect but he briefly touched a part that jumped out at me.

Matthew 15:21-28 (The Message) 

21-22From there Jesus took a trip to Tyre and Sidon. They had hardly arrived when a Canaanite woman came down from the hills and pleaded, “Mercy, Master, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly afflicted by an evil spirit.”  23Jesus ignored her. The disciples came and complained, “Now she’s bothering us. Would you please take care of her? She’s driving us crazy.”  24Jesus refused, telling them, “I’ve got my hands full dealing with the lost sheep of Israel.”  25Then the woman came back to Jesus, went to her knees, and begged. “Master, help me.”  26He said, “It’s not right to take bread out of children’s mouths and throw it to dogs.”  27She was quick: “You’re right, Master, but beggar dogs do get scraps from the master’s table.”  28Jesus gave in. “Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!” Right then her daughter became well.

I thought to myself. Wow, God I want to have that something else kind of faith, the one that makes you say, wow, girl, “what you want is what you get!” The Word tells us that “without faith it is impossible to please God”. That means we could be busy doing a whole load of other things but without faith we can’t please him and without this something else kind of faith, we won’t get what we so desire.

He said Oh, Woman! I don’t know but that hit me hard in a good way. In this time of economic crisis, turmoil every which way we turn, we need to hold on to God and to His Word and not give in no matter what!! This verse is officially the next one I would love to hear Jesus tell me along with “Well done my good and faithful servant! My ghettoized Jesus would say ….Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaag Liz, you got that stu————pid kind of faith!

Yeah, I want my faith to impress God! Don’t you?

I was reading Craig Groeschel’s blog and he wrote a few days ago about how our words as leaders and pastors can be impactful to others. Just the other day, I was speaking with a few girlfriends about the horrible dysfunction of spiritual abuse, well this is the other side. Read his post here.

I so believe in this. I am constantly in awe of how God has changed me over the years because I actually care now. I mean “really” care.

I care how I say things to someone.

I actually care about how things are received by someone (although I also know that there are just some people bent on being miserable no matter what),

I actually care about making someone feel better after having spoken to me versus worse!

I actually care about lifting people up and giving them hope for a better future in God.

I want to use my words for good.

I don’t want to purposefully spit out words that hurt. I pray the Holy Spirit convict me when I do.

All this to say, use your words for His glory. Lift up and encourage. God will bless you but more than that…you will feel great.

 I know this is a very critical time in our election process but I thought you should hear another side to all this. Check out this link and tell me your thoughts.

It’s pastor appreciation month and looking for things to do for our pastors, I found this Pastoral Search report. It is funny. Here it is:

We do not have a happy report to give. We’ve not been able to find a suitable candidate for this church, though we have one promising prospect still. We do appreciate all the suggestions from the church members, and we’ve followed up each one with interviews or calling at least three references. The following is our confidential report on the present candidates.

• Adam: Good man but problems with his wife. Also one reference told of how his wife and he enjoy walking nude in the woods.
• Noah: Former pastorate of 120 years with no converts. Prone to unrealistic building projects.
• Abraham: Though the references reported wife-swapping, the facts seem to show he never slept with another man’s wife, but did offer to share his own wife with another man.
• Joseph: A big thinker, but a braggart, believes in dream-interpreting, and has a prison record.
• Moses: A modest and meek man, but poor communicator, even stuttering at times. Sometimes blows his stack and acts rashly. Some say he left an earlier church over a murder charge.
• David: The most promising leader of all until we discovered the affair he had with his neighbor’s wife.
• Solomon: Great preacher but our parsonage would never hold all those wives.
• Elijah: Prone to depression-collapses under pressure.
• Elisha: Reported to have lived with a single widow while at his former church.
• Hosea: A tender and loving pastor but our people could never handle his wife’s occupation.
• Deborah: Female.
• Jeremiah: Emotionally unstable, alarmist, negative, always lamenting things, and reported to have taken a long trip to bury his underwear on the bank of foreign river.
• Isaiah: On the fringe? Claims to have seen angels in church. Has trouble with his language.
• Jonah: Refused God’s call into ministry until he was forced to obey by getting swallowed up by a great fish. He told us the fish later spit him out on the shore near here. We hung up.
• Amos: Too backward and unpolished. With some seminary training he might have promise, but has a hang-up against wealthy people. Might fit in better in a poor congregation.
• John: Says he is a Baptist, but definitely doesn’t dress like one. Has slept in the outdoors for months on end, has a weird diet, and provokes denominational leaders.
• Peter: Too blue collar. Has a bad temper—even has been known to curse. Had a big run-in with Paul in Antioch. Aggressive, but a loose cannon.
• Paul: Powerful CEO type leader and fascinating preacher. However, short on tact, unforgiving with younger ministers, harsh and has been known to preach all night.
• Timothy: Too young.
• Jesus: Has had popular times, but once when his church grew to 5000 he managed to offend them all and this church dwindled down to twelve people. Seldom stays in one place very long. And, of course, he’s single.
• Judas: His references are solid. A steady plodder. Conservative. Good connections. Knows how to handle money. We’re inviting him to preach this Sunday. Possibilities here.

My husband and I are getting ready for a Jesus filled weekend in NYC Nov 1-2. He’ll be preaching at two churches on Sunday and on Saturday I am doing my very own seminar based on the book that I am writing. We are so FULL right now we are just crying and in God’s presence and feel like we are going to explode. I just know that I know that I know…God is going to show up and show off. Not because of US, but because we feel the Word of God bubbling up inside of us and we know those who are going to be there are ready to receive the active, transformative Word of God.

This scripture verse just blows my mind: His purpose titanic,   his verdicts oceanic.   Yet in his largeness   nothing gets lost;   Not a man, not a mouse,   slips through the cracks.  - Psalms 36:6

Most of us don’t need to be “convinced” that we need friends, we just need to make the time to make the friends! Read more here.

As usual I am reading about three books at the same time, one book I am pretty close to finishing but have been savoring is Craig Groeschel’s 3^rd book “IT-How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It.” His first book was Chazown and his second was Confessions of a Pastor. Both books that I read and really enjoyed.  So with the title of his 3^rd I could not help myself, I had to order it. I am glad that I did.

What I love about this pastor guy is that the dude is so transparent as a person who is respected in many church circles due to what he has been able to accomplish as a church planter. He’s the lead pastor of LifeChurch.tv in Oklahoma.

Why I like this book:

1.    As usual its easy to read. No deep theology here but simple lessons about real life church.

2.    He shares his own stories as usual which is refreshing.

3.    He attempts to explain something that many of us in church leadership try to understand…that energy, buzz, God drawing attraction in a church that makes a person interested in attending AND staying to sign on. Craig calls that “IT”

4.    The book is a great leadership discussion book because it has questions after every chapter .

This is what I’ve read so far:

1.    IT comes from God. But there is good news: if you don’t have IT, you can it IT. But there is also bad news: if you do have IT, you can lose IT.

2.    Some have IT and some lack IT. Most things that we think help us get IT are nothing but trappings. His church was able to get IT at the initial stages of his planting journey without many of the things I know I myself have complained about not having. So those excuses just don’t fit into his IT theory.

3.    As a church pastor, leader when you know and have discerned the voice of God for your choice and had decided the course ahead, bring IT into focus. IT can’t be taught, but IT can be caught.

4.    Help your people see IT clearly. That means you never talk too much about your vision. When you think you have been sharing too much that is probably when people just started getting IT.

5.    Focus on IT since you can’t focus on everything. We need to learn how to make a “To-Don’t” list so we don’t do more than God is really asking us to do, sometimes it is someone else’s assignment (borrowed from Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil) and we need to learn how to be ok with that!

6.    This is the one I really enjoyed him mentioning since I am a relator! He said churches with IT, have an unmistakable camaraderie.  There is no faking. The team of leaders have refrigerator rights (you know when someone can go into your refrigerator and you don’t go ghetto on them), where the team is truly attempting and striving to be an Acts 2 community amongst each other. When leaders have that, IT is powerful and speaks volumes.

How I am applying:

1.    I already am a big advocate for relationship building. So I introduced this book into our pastoral leadership meetings and I am so thankful to God that for a new team, we are pretty close and working on this and actually do really like and love each other. It can only get deeper from here. God put together an amazing team. I am so thankful and as others come on to the team, as we keep learning about “gelling” together, about the importance of relationships within our team, with our leaders and with the church, we are just totally heading in the right direction.

2.    Team chemistry is important and we don’t have to feel bad about that truth. In his book he interviews a few pastors and in this regard he spoke to Perry Noble of NewSpring Church in South Carolina and he states “I would never hire someone we don’t like. Life is too short to spend forty to fifty hours around people who do nothing but stress you out and make you desire to go and stick your head in a blender. I really do love the guys I serve with. They are my best friends. I love their families. We cannot be effective if we don’t like each other.”

3.    I am so not able to fake it. So I am glad that most of the people around me are pretty genuine and we pretty much all are in agreement that we should not do life alone. As Rev. Ray Rivera teaches, “authentic community is removing the mask of composure, making each other’s condition our own.”

Why you should get the book:

1.    Because we never know everything.

2.    Because it is good to be reminded about what we do know or have had an idea on

3.    Because it is good to hear the crazy stories of people who have been successful and see that on their way to success there were failures and limited resources too.

4.    Because I like this guy. He keeps it real and comes across as a peer not as a know-it-all, pompous derriere. I got a thing about those kind of folk. J

5. Maybe if you read it, your church or ministry team will learn HOW TO GET IT.