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If you’ve ever tried to tell someone a story about a memorable personal experience, you know how difficult it can be to communicate the event in such a way that the listener experiences a similar impact. Thus the phrase, “I guess you had to be there.” In order to overcome this obstacle, a good storyteller will embellish a few details to heighten the listeners second-hand experience of the event. Whatever was funny, scary, or embarrassing to you when it happened has to be made a bit funnier, scarier, or more embarrassing when you’re telling someone else about it.  That’s just the way storytelling works. I’m betting that just about every true story worth worth listening to is actually “based on a true story.” It happened, but details have been embellished for effect.

Of course, it’s possible to embellish enough details that the story being told has almost no connection to what actually happened. There is an ongoing debate in Hollywood about how many details can be changed in a movie that is “based on a true story” before a line is crossed and fact becomes fiction. How do you know when the line has been crossed? Most of the time, the audience will have a sense that somewhere in the telling the story was no longer grounded in reality. Even if the audience doesn’t know when the line has been crossed, the teller will know. At least for awhile. If he tells the story enough times, he’ll eventually forget which parts were true and which ones he made up.

Nevertheless, storytelling without some embellishment isn’t much fun, for either the teller or the listener. So the next time someone tells you a story worth listening to, rather than wondering whether the details were embellished, just assume that they were. Instead of holding that against the storyteller, be glad that he did it.

Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t have paid attention long enough to care.

By the way, I had a hard time deciding whether to use the word “embellish” or “exaggerate” for this post. Did I choose the right one? Is there a difference between the two words?

Lynn Anderson has been one of my mentors for at least a decade now. I love his spirit in the video. (Via Mike Cope)

I’ve been to a lot of conferences. Enough to have developed some cynicism about their long-term impact on what I do. I can honestly say that the Verge Conference was one of the very best I’ve ever been to. Most likely it was a combination of the content presented and the questions I brought with me. I’m in a different place in my ministry than I have been in years past, so it changed the way I heard what was presented at Verge.

Overall, what I experienced at Verge affirmed the direction the Fulcrum Community is headed. It seems that more and more church leaders are moving away from “church as we know it” and looking for a more relational, sustainable, and enjoyable way of gathering a community of Christ-followers. I heard several mega-church pastors almost lamenting what they’ve helped create as they aren’t sure it’s really increasing the number of disciples in the world. It’s one thing to gather a crowd with a fancy church show and then ask people to volunteer to help keep the show rolling. It’s another thing altogether to make disciples of Christ who see themselves as missionaries with a ministry all their own.

I came away with three big nuggets that are a combination of what I heard at Verge and what we’re learning at Fulcrum. As we continue to clarify our mission and strategy, these may prove to be helpful to us. At the very least, they may help us put some flesh on the ideas of community, outreach, and discipleship.

Essentially, we can accomplish our mission by: throwing parties, doing good in the community, and taking Jesus seriously.

1. Throw Parties: Dinner parties, block parties, special event parties, birthday parties, cookouts, poker nights, and anything else we can think of. Parties create inclusive community, but only when we keep inviting our friends and neighbors to join us. When our parties cease to have outsiders present, it’s over.

2. Do Good in the Community: Beginning with our neighborhoods, we look for opportunities to serve our neighbors. We start small and close. From there, we expand our ministry throughout the city to larger and larger projects.

3. Take Jesus seriously: He’s the point of all this. We listen to him and do what he says. We read his word and let it start messing with us. We invite our friends to the same. We all learn to follow Jesus together.

What would a community of faith look like if it spent most of it’s energy on these three things?

One of the interesting things about meeting in a coffee house is that we occasionally have people walk in during our gathering looking to buy a cup of coffee. Star Co. is usually closed on Sundays and the sign out front says so, but when people are walking down the street and see a room full of people drinking coffee, they make assumptions and come on in.

This has to be an odd experience for them. Imagine walking into your favorite coffee house and immediately having four or five people turn and greet you and say “We’re glad you’re here.” The look on their face usually tells us whether they’ve come for Cafe Fulcrum or for a cup of coffee. Some, when they learn they’ve stepped into an “event,” turn around and leave. Others, brave the awkward friendliness and step to the counter and place their order. One guy was standing at the counter and people kept chatting him up and finally he said, “I’m just here to get a latte for my wife.” We offered him a free breakfast taco to go with it.

It bothers me that we’re putting people in an awkward situation. (As an introvert, one of my personal core values is to avoid public embarrassment whenever possible.) We’re trying to address it with some additional signage that explains what we’re doing while inviting them to come on in an join us anyway. On the other hand, this is also one of the reasons I love having our gathering in a public space–we just never know who is going to walk in.

At the Cafe last Sunday, we had a couple walk into the world’s friendliest coffee house and order something to eat and drink. As they were waiting, they asked the barista what was going on. They also talked to a couple of Fulcrum people. They ended up staying for the entire gathering. They sat at the back and ate their food and drank their coffee and listened to what I had to say. Afterward, I got to meet them and invite them to the next Cafe. I love the idea that they came in for coffee and ended up hanging out with our community for almost an hour.

But that’s not all that happened on Sunday.

Another couple came in and never made it past the mat in front of the door. I was at the mic teaching and they quickly figured out what was going on. They immediately turned around and walked out. As they did, the man said to his companion, “F—ing church!” The guys at the back of the room thought it was hilarious.

This is exactly where our community needs to be: in between the seekers and the cynics. Some walk in for coffee and end up staying awhile. Others walk out cursing us before we can even offer them a free cup of coffee and breakfast taco. I’d like to believe that Jesus and his little band of followers experienced something similar when he was preaching in the marketplace.

By the way, I’ve heard people curse as they walk out of church before, but it’s usually after they hear my sermon, not before.

Yesterday we had a meeting of the team that is working to launch the Fulcrum Community. This a group of dedicated individuals and families who have committed to doing the necessary work to gather a new community of faith in the North Austin/Round Rock area. I love these people and I thank God for them every day.

As we were evaluating what we’ve been doing over the past few months, the consensus was that Cafe Fulcrum is the best thing we’ve done so far. We’ve had three of them, all of them at Star Co. Coffee, a coffee house in downtown Round Rock. The idea behind Cafe Fulcrum is to create a middle space kind of environment that is bigger than a small group, but smaller and more informal than a large group worship gathering. It’s a combination of food, live music, and short teachings about how the Fulcrum Community fits into God’s dream for the world.

It was initially designed to be a mixer. We invited all of our friends and contacts with the hope they’d come and meet each other and get more information about what Fulcrum is all about. Each one has gone really well. We’ve had new people join us every time and we’ve had people come back more than once. Both of these are huge wins for us. We’ve also had a few people who come to the Cafe end up in a Home Group, our weekly groups that meet in homes. Another win.

We’ve had people attend who have been going to a church most of their lives and we’ve had people join us who’ve never been a part of an organized community of faith. We’ve even got a few who are burned out on church as we know it, but still love Jesus and long for some spiritual community. The feedback from all of these different groups has been overwhelmingly positive. They are enjoying exploring spiritual issues and hearing more about the Kingdom of God without the formality of walking into a church building and sitting through a church service. As one person put it, “it’s not stuffy and preachy.” The emphasis at Cafe Fulcrum is definitely on building relationships, rather than putting on a “church show.” (I’m in no way throwing rocks at church buildings or services. I’m reporting the feedback I’m getting from people who aren’t in the habit of going to church services in church buildings or who are trying to get out of the habit of doing so.)

We’re discovering there is something wonderfully natural about walking into a coffee house on a Sunday morning, grabbing a cup of coffee and a breakfast taco, and connecting with others who are searching for something “more” in life.

After about 15 or 20 minutes of conversation, someone begins to play some music. The first time it was local artist, Grace Pettis. The last two times it’s been our new teammate, Patrick Jones. At the last Cafe, Patrick did an amazing job of transitioning us into a moment of worship when he invited us to sing with him a song he wrote. Turns out it was a song about God and we sang it together and it was worship. It was simple and beautiful and it gave me a vision of what Cafe Fulcrum can become. I got up after Patrick and did my best to summarize the storyline of the Bible in less than 15 minutes.

We’re going to do another Cafe this Sunday. I expect there to be hints of worship and glimpses of God’s glory in Star Co. when we gather. We’ll eat some food and meet some new people. Patrick will invite us to join him in singing some God songs. I’ll talk about Jesus. Only Gods knows what will happen after that.

I love it, and I hope God does too.

Come check it out if you’re in the area.

As the Cowboy game was finishing up on Sunday, I got an email from a friend I haven’t heard from in a while.

The subject line said: Ouch. In the body he wrote, “Reality hurts. Go Vikes.”

I immediately responded with, “This is an unacceptable email drop in. We haven’t been communicating regularly enough for you to send me the equivalent of a one ring rub in.” 

I don’t mind my friends busting my chops when my team loses if they’ve been a part of the conversation beforehand. Had we exchanged even one syllable of pre-game banter, then I’d have welcomed his email as a twisted display of friendship. But what he did was not appropriate, especially since I know that he has little interest in pro football and has no favorite team that he publicly supports. Which means there is no way I can send him a similar email in the future when his teams crashes and burns. He’s not playing fair.

He responded with, “Happy events make me think of you.  Anything bad happening to the Cowboys is a happy event indeed. ‘Unacceptable email drop in’ has a Bill Simmons like sound to it.  I like it…”

Which brings me to the point of this post. It was no surprise that my friend told me I sounded like Simmons. For the past two months I’ve been plowing through his latest volume, The Book of Basketball. At over 700 pages, this is by far the longest book I’ve read since I worked through Wright’s book on the Resurrection of Jesus.

Now that I think of it, both books have a lot in common. Like Wright, Simmons provides persuasive argumentation for the unprovable. I mean, how can you prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the 86 Celtics are the greatest team of all time? You can’t, but Simmons does his best to take away whatever objections you might might have and in the end you can’t dismiss the probability that he’s right (I agree with him by the way).

Both Wright and Simmons drop footnotes like crazy. Simmons’ footnotes are funnier than Wright’s though. Here’s my favorite:

Pete Maravich holds the white guy record for points (68); Jerry Lucas for rebounds (40); Mark Eaton for blocks (14); Dirk Nowitski/John Stockton for steals (9); and Dan Majerle/Rex Chapman for threes (9). Peja Stojakovic had 10 threes in a game but I don’t count the Euros as true white guys. Just a personal thing with me.

(Don’t buy this book and try to read it on a Kindle. They can be hard to track down on a Kindle and the footnotes alone are worth the price of the book.)

Both Wright and Simmons can dig into the minutia of a topic and pick it apart for pages. I don’t care how much time you’ve spent thinking about basketball, Simmons has spent more. You may think you know a lot about the game, but Simmons knows more. He proves it page after page after page after page. If you’ve read his column, then you know how long-winded he can be as he goes on quirky asides and throws around creative pop-culture references.  This book is like that times two.

Speaking of asides, I told my friend who sent me the email that I’d send him my copy of the book now that I’m done with it. Ever since his major breach of chop-busting etiquette on Sunday, I’m thinking about sending it “first class postage due.” With a book this size that will amount to a double digit fine.

Seems about right.

I remember preaching a New Year’s sermon to a group of beaten down people when I was in my mid-twenties. I started off by asking how many of them had made at least one resolution for the new year. I was unprepared for the lackluster response. Only a few hands went up. I thought that maybe the rest were just being shy so I pressed them a bit, but quickly found out that they hadn’t made any resolutions. I remember thinking how sad it was to see people give up on changing something about their lives.

Now that I’m a decade older I think I understand why most of them had stopped making resolutions. Experience had taught them that 99% of New Year’s resolutions “don’t mean nothing” come February. After awhile, we get tired of setting ourselves up for disappointment and failure. It’s easier to resolve to do nothing new or different than it is to make a commitment and then wind up with the same results as those who made no resolutions at all.

Most resolutions fail because they’re actually more wishes than commitments. A resolution without a clearly defined goal that is supported with a realistic strategy, and empowered by an encouraging community is nothing more than an opportunity to be disappointed in yourself. If you’re not willing to do the strategic work behind the resolution then don’t torture yourself by making yet another list of wishes that have no chance of coming true.

Over the last decade, I’ve made my share of dead-end resolutions and I’ve let a few January’s come and go without setting any goals for myself. I’ve found myself stuck in a moment that I can’t get out of more times than I’m comfortable admitting. I shudder to think that at times I’ve been well on my way to being one of those who has simply given up and resigned myself to living the life that is, rather than the life that could be.

That’s why before I made any resolutions this year, I had to make a declaration: I don’t ever want to believe that change is impossible. I don’t ever want to be the kind of person who looks at some area of mediocrity in my life and decides that this is as good as it’s going to get. I always want to believe that things can get better, that I can be better, that I don’t have to be stuck where I am.

Change is possible!

I believe this.

What about you?

Here’s an advent post from several years ago. Seems appropriate to bring it back to the top of the pile.

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Psalm 13:1-2 (NIV)

How long O Lord?

It’s a gut-wrenching question that keeps turning up throughout the Scriptures, if not always explicitly, at least in spirit.

It’s the cry of Abraham and Sarah as they wait for 25 years for the child God has promised them.

It’s the cry of Israel in Egypt after Pharoah turns the people into slaves and forces them to chomp down on the bitter dust of oppression.

It’s the cry of Israel during the time of the Judges as they are pestered by the Philistines.

It’s the cry of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1 as she sits at the tabernacle, brokenhearted because she is childless while her husband’s other wife is more fertile than the Amazon rain forest.

How long O Lord?

It’s a question of desperation, a cry of frustration, a plea to a God who has made a promise to be faithful. It’s asked by those who have reached their breaking point and can’t stand it any longer.

In the Scriptures, God repeatedly answers the question “How long O Lord?” by taking action at just the right moment. Usually this action is somehow related to the birth of a special baby who will grow up to do special things.

A child named Isaac is born to Abraham and Sarah. He’s living proof that God keeps his promises.

A child named Moses is born in Egypt. He’ll lead his people out of bondage.

A child named Samson is born in Israel. From his enemies he’ll take no sass, he’ll whip the Philistines with the jawbone of an . . .(nevermind).

A child named Samuel is born to Hannah. He’ll grow up to be a mighty prophet of God and a maker and breaker of kings.

One of the great tragedies of the holiday season is that we get so caught up in what has been dubbed by some as “McChristmas”–a rushed, commercialized, mutation of the Christmas celebration-that we forget that Jesus was God’s answer to the question “How Long O Lord?”

For Centuries, Israel had been waiting for God to fully deliver them from their exile and to restore them to glory. How long would God allow their land to be occupied by pagan idol-worshippers whose king was named Caesar, instead of Messiah?

At precisely the right moment God took action. I love the way Paul puts it in Galatians 4:4-5:

But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. (NLT)

God had been preparing his people for this moment for centuries, when the time was right, He entered history as Jesus of Nazerath, the Christ, and in doing so addressed all the evils that had inspired or would ever inspire the question “How long O Lord?”

As we look forward to the coming of Christ, let us look around and name the evil we see and let us pray, “How long O Lord?”