Posted by admin2 | Filed under Grace Community Church, Ministry, Personal
BEGINNINGS
Last night, after 5 months of “courtship,” Grace Community Church, Washingtonville, NY officially extended a call to me to be their Lead Pastor. Christie and I accepted! Washingtonville is located about an hour and change from New York City. She’s located in Orange County (the home of “Orange County Choppers!”). For those who are curious or interested in the unfolding of this opportunity I’d love to share the story with you.
Thanks for reading this rambling novel. I’ll keep blogging and tweeting of course. Please keep coming back!
Posted by admin2 | Filed under Grace Community Church, Sermons

Lesson #2: ENDING DELUSIONS (1/15/2012)
God is the true owner of my money and possessions and I will be free to give sacrificially, at peace financially, and secure in accountability before Him, when I see myself as His manager of money and stuff.
——-
Sowing Lesson #1: FACING YOUR FEARS (1/8/2012)
If I want confidence and peace that God will meet my financial needs, then I must involve Him in my financial life by seeking Him first through sacrificial generosity toward His Kingdom work.
Tags: christianity, Church, financial fears, generosity, stewardship
Posted by admin2 | Filed under Grace Community Church, Sermons
Money. People, especially Christians (ironically), respond disturbedly and suspiciously when this topic, coupled with generosity, comes up. However, I don’t think the issue with authentic Christians is greed, but fear. Fear of what?
I just launched a new teaching series at Grace Community entitled “Sowing Lessons.” Below is the lesson #1 statement and the audio teaching where the issue of fear is addressed. Buckle up, and enjoy!
To listen to audio teaching, “Facing Your Fears” (1/8/12), go HERE.
Sowing Lesson #1: If I want confidence and peace that God will meet my financial needs, then I must involve Him in my financial life by seeking Him first through sacrificial generosity toward His Kingdom work.
Tags: christianity, Church, financial fear, generosity, money, stewardship
Posted by admin2 | Filed under Grace Community Church, Ministry, Personal, Thoughts
Hurricane Irene had just hit New York. The flooding in Washingtonville, NY, where Grace
Community is located, was devastating. We invited Red Cross to use our campus to help us love on our community. A “Red Cross city” was set up, basically. Red Cross volunteers were taking up a quarter of the building where they’d be bunking for 2 weeks (surprise!), as well as half of our campus, with supplies, and trailers and the like. It was the only such set up for hundreds of miles. So Grace became gloriously chaotic in a hurry.
Then, misinformation goes out that Grace is a “shelter” for any and all families affected by flooding. It was even on news websites. Not good. Hundreds of people were affected. Grace’s facilities are not even close to being equipped to house hardly anyone, especially at the capacity and for the length of time which would be needed from the flooding. In addition, let me not fail to mention that since it was on websites, if we now didn’t provide shelter, bad press was assured. New York-like bad press, I feared. Nevertheless, I had to head “the shelter” issue off at the pass.
Pressure started coming at me, personally, from a couple of local government officials to make Grace just such a shelter. However, to make Grace a shelter would undermine Red Cross’s efforts, and deeply and negatively compromise Grace’s facilities, campus, services, and even the families we’d shelter in untold ways.
So I couldn’t, and didn’t, budge. We just couldn’t be a shelter and be a church and have weekend services and house Red Cross and serve our community, and….. Still I felt the pressure. And I felt the guilt. I was preparing for the bad press that would follow too. I was preparing for how I would handle the potential unwarranted backlash from our community, but also the misunderstandings that would come from caring Grace people who wouldn’t know or couldn’t comprehend all of the inner-issues. And to top it all off, we, the Grace staff, were staring down the 10th anniversary of 9/11 services at our church that coming weekend where we were expecting record-breaking attendance. And on and on I could go.
I prayed and said, “Lord, I’m listening to you. Help me. Give me wisdom. Show me what to do for everyone’s good, and for your glory. I know you are using this to make me a better leader too, Lord. I pray you help me pass this test.”
As I stood there going over things in my mind, praying, texting, emailing, calling, praying, texting, and so on, in walked Ken Wojehowski. Ken is a retired worker of the U.S. Mint at Westpoint. He is a volunteer at Grace. Also, he has graciously allowed us to hire him a few hours a week to be a custodian for Grace. And I’ll tell you this: What he (and another Grace servant, Denise Maroney), does to our building every day and weekend is nothing short of glorious. And an answer to many months of this pastor’s pleas to the Lord for excellence in that area. The building under Ken’s watch is spotless, clean, excellent, superbly maintained. He is a gift. He never phones it in. And he’s always serving with a gleam in his eye, a bounce in his step, and smile on his face. Always.
He walked into my office that morning unannounced (which isn’t like him). He was smiling. He reached out and shook my hand…with vigor. I shook his and hugged him, because that’s just what I do… and he’s just a huggable fella. I said, “Man, it’s crazy right now, right?” Then he shared something with me. He shared words of tremendous encouragement in two sentences that gave me great confidence in my leadership.
Then he said the three words that I repeat to myself about twice a week now. I can’t remember all that he said verbatim, but it was along these lines: “Pastor, as an athlete (wrestling), and in coaching, I was taught these words: Don’t panic. Adjust.” That’s all he said. Then he smiled at me as we stood there just kind of looking at one another for a couple of silent seconds. And then I smiled–”Don’t panic. Adjust.”
Message received.
Don’t you love people like that in your life? Ken represents the quality of people and volunteers at Grace Community Church. Ken is not only a volunteer and servant of Grace, but a friend, and a leader. He’s a leader I learned from, and will continue to learn from. I want to be more like him. I want you to be more like him.
2 Takeaways for the New Year:
1) Don’t Panic. Adjust.
2) Invest your life into people.
Will you make it a goal to invest your life in someone(s) in 2012?
Tags: christianity, Church, leadership, spiritual leadership
Posted by admin2 | Filed under Grace Community Church, Ministry, Thoughts
A while back a particular Grace Community group leader from our church stated how hard he worked to prepare for his weekly Bible study. He shared with me that his group was sharp and that they would know whether or not he was “phoning it in.” It made this pastor grateful and proud!
I heard that phrase repeated recently regarding a presentation by someone. There was a lot of suspicion that one of the presenters “phoned it in.” Indeed, one can always tell if presenters “phone it in” regardless of how over-the-top they try to communicate. Just watch TBN. In under two minutes you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
Then, this past Sunday at Grace Community, instead of having three services at one hour and fifteen minutes, we only had one service at an hour. We were expecting low attendance. And sure enough we only had about 15% of our normal attendance Christmas Day. Someone made the comment about being intrigued that after I had preached five Christmas Eve services in a row the afternoon/evening before, that, in his opinion, I could energetically preach an equally strong message for a fraction of the people the next morning on Christmas Day. Then I heard it again: “You didn’t phone it in.’”
What? I had two reactions within me: 1) Praise God for the encouragement. 2) How could I not give it all I’ve got? I don’t preach for people. I preach for Christ.
If I read my Bible rightly, christians don’t work, serve, volunteer, give, sacrifice, and “show up”… for people. But for Christ alone. Then people receive the benefit of it.
I struggle respecting anyone, especially christians, who “phone it in” in anything. Now granted, life can get difficult, workloads overflow our plates, and some things might suffer. But those things should only suffer…once, or once-in-a-blue-moon. If any more than that, one would need to do some soul-searching about the stewardship of his/her time management, health, and so forth. Likewise, some inner-wrestling would be needed to determine if one is doing what God wants him/her to do and where God wants him/her to be doing it.
We are all human, and tired, and overwhelmed. But hear me out: Even that doesn’t warrant “phoning it in.” Even in that difficult place we must still give the best we’ve got. But if it’s simply sub-par to where people say “he/she phoned it in,” then so be it. By God’s grace, you can stand before Christ with no regrets, look yourself in the mirror with a clear conscience, move on in confidence, and take measures to get yourself back at peak level (vacation, sabbath, saying “no” to good things to do the best things, etc).
A while back, Grace Community’s Worship pastor, and dear friend, Jeff Dueck, shared with me a scene from the movie Gattaca. In a nutshell, Vincent, the average-Joe human, raced his genetically super-human brother, Anton, in a swim through an expansive ocean. In the past, Anton had always won. However, this time, unbelievably, Vincent won. Anton asks Vincent how he did it. Vincent says, “You want to know how I did it? This is how I did it, Anton: I never saved anything for the swim back.”
Please, for the love of God (literally)… don’t approach 2012 with a “phone it in attitude” toward anything. No christian leader, boss, manager, employee, pastor, minister, volunteer, need ever be suspect as having “phoned it in.” And not because we are super motivated or disciplined, but because this is our worshipful response to a great Gospel, and breathtaking Savior.
NEVER leave anything for the swim back.
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:17
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31
Tags: christianity, incompetence, laziness, spiritual leadership