LOMBARDI’S 5 RULES FOR SUCCESS

The Colts and the Saints are in the Super Bowl this year. I’ve been a Colts fan since I was a kid in Maryland, so I’m glad. The trophy given to the winner of the Super Bowl is the Vince Lombardi trophy.
Vince Lombardi was the coach of the Green Bay Packers. He led them to 5 championships in 9 seasons. Under his leadership, the Packers won the first two Super Bowls. There’s a book out now about the 26 Rules of Lombardi. But I was cleaning out my files recently and came across notes about Lombardi’s 5 Rules for Success. I know starting a new church isn’t exactly the same as football, but I think we can see some application.

1. Lombardi had 1 goal – to win.

“Winning isn’t everything, but the will to win is everything.”
“If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?”
We Christians know that it is hard to keep score on our work for God. Our goal is to be faithful. But I think I Corinthians 9:24 says something about our attitude in our faithful work: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.”
As an athlete denies himself and gives his all, so should we. I like a guy to be aggressive. Don’t wait for things to happen. (The verse about waiting on the Lord doesn’t mean we should never do anything – the Bible is filled with action verses.) Plan, visit, study, pray, call, talk, write, email, preach, teach, mail, do. Then God has something to bless. It’s like having a garden. There is no life apart from God (God gives the increase - I Corinthians 3:6), but somebody has to plant and water. God will grow our church, but we must sow the seed.
“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”


2. Lombardi built an organization that shared his philosophy.

“Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn't do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another.”
“Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another and of strength to be derived by unity.”
You can’t please everybody. And neither can you have a church going in 10 different directions. Know what you believe. Teach it. Get people of a like mind to work with you. For those who can’t work with your philosophy and beliefs, let them exit gracefully. There must be a sense of unity and oneness for your church to prosper.

3. Lombardi taught his players the basic fundamentals.

“Some people try to find things in this game that don't exist; but football is only two things - blocking and tackling.”

We need to teach people the basics of doctrine. We need to teach people the basics of Christian living. Instead, many churches waste their focus on politics, the environment, convictions that are not Bible-based, endless disagreements on the end times, etc. No wonder many Christians are ripe targets for cults. They don’t know what they believe or why.

4. Lombardi trained his players to execute 6 basic plays to perfection.

“Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
Sometimes the difference between and ho-hum sermon and a great one is taking the extra time to find the right illustration or think awhile to come up with a good application. It’s tempting sometimes to blow the dust off a message we preached a few years ago and taking 15 minutes to review it. But that can lead to a dull, lifeless message. Our people need better than that.


5. Lombardi instilled in his players enthusiasm.

“If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”
People want to follow someone who is passionate about what they believe. You don’t have to have a life of the party personality to do this. People are looking for something that you really believe and that comes from your heart. Be an encourager. Build faith in your people. Here’s a quote from CS Lewis that I like:
“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
If you are starting a church, you are one of the most important people in your town or city. You are making an impact on the lives of generations of people. You are speaking for God and dealing with eternity.
That’s something to be enthusiastic about!

PLANTING FAST-GROWING CHURCHES


Planting Fast-growing Churches is the title of a book written by Stephen Gray. He is the Director of National Missions for General Baptists. He is also a former church planter. Dr. Gray sent questionnaires to 336 recent church plants in 5 denominations. The criteria for churches in this study: 1. At least 3 years old, but no older than 6 years; 2. Had to be led by a first-time church planter; 3. The new church must have been started in a city of at least 30,000 people. He separated the churches into two categories: Fast-growing and Struggling. A fast-growing church reached an average attendance of at least 200 and was financially self-supporting by 3 years from its public launch. Only 7% of the 2285 churches that qualified for this study were fast-growing. All other church plants were labeled struggling.

Here are some of the conclusions that the author reached from this study:

FINANCES

· Churches that received no additional startup money didn’t grow as fast as those that could get some help. But churches that received over $50,000 in additional funds (after salary) did worse than churches that received less than $50,000. Dr. Gray was concerned that new churches that received too much money or received support for too long could develop a welfare mentality.
· A significantly higher percentage of fast-growing churches taught financial stewardship within the first 6 months.
· Churches that gave a greater percentage of their income to outside causes did better.

LAUNCH

· The new church should have between 25 and 50 adults prior to launch.
· Both small groups and preview services should be used to build the core group.
· Many fast-growing churches had preview services every other week instead of once a month.

MINISTRIES

· 97% of fast-growing churches had a children’s ministry, while only 42% of struggling churches did.
· 92% of fast-growing churches offered 3 or more ministries at their opening. The most common ministries were worship, children, and teen.

This book was interesting to me. But that doesn’t mean that I have to agree with every conclusion. I would like to know more about the fast-growing churches. In what region of the country were they located? Did they have significant number of other members of their denomination or a mother church help them? Were some of these statistics the cause or the result?

However, this book can help us think about what we need to do to have faster-growing churches. It would especially be good for new church planters who haven’t had their first service.

I’ll end this with a quote from chapter 1:
“Church planting will make you feel alive, and it can push you to the brink of insanity. It will give you a new sense of God’s presence and convince you that Satan is alive and well. You will celebrate the birth of a new church will unearthly joy, and experience betrayal from friends and family in ways you never thought possible. As a church planter, you will experience high highs and low lows. It’s dangerous and dramatic. As they say on television – kids, don’t try this at home.”

THE NONES ARE COMING


DISCOURAGING THOUGHTS

The “Nones” are people who claim no religious affiliation. According to an article in The Week magazine from November 6, 2009, a study by Trinity College found their numbers are increasing. In 1990, 8 % of Americans claimed no religious affiliation, while in a recent survey that number has climbed to 15%. Their numbers are higher in the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest. Nones also have a higher percentage among younger people.

Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods says,
“Philosophically, you can believe anything, so long as you do not claim it to be true.
Morally you can practice anything, so long as you do not claim that it is a ‘better’ way.
Religiously, you can hold to anything, so long as you do not bring Jesus Christ in to it.”

Another survey by the National Opinion Research Center says that regular church attendance has fallen in the US. In 1971, 41% of the population attended church regularly, while in 2002 the number had dropped to 31%. Denominational loyalty has also eroded with churchgoers shopping around. Southern Baptist researcher Brad Waggoner says, “There’s no simple answer why people are so restless.” Since younger people tend to be more nonreligious, some are concerned this may be a growing trend in America. Trinity demographer Ariela Keysar says secularism in the US may one day rival the famed religious indifference of Europeans. “We’re not there,” she says, “but we’re going in that direction.”


ENCOURAGING THOUGHTS

A slim majority of the Nones believe in God and a third say they pray weekly or daily. Fewer than 10% call themselves atheists. Even though over 3 million people in America claim to be atheists, that number is only 1% of our population. This, in spite of an almost all out war by evolutionists and atheists in books, curriculum, TV shows, etc.

A lot of these people leaving organized religion are leaving liberal, unbelieving churches and the Catholic church. Erwin Lutzer says the persecution in China during the Cultural Revolution wiped out theological liberalism. Maybe the Catholic church’s scandals and the liberal church’s lack of answers is starting to do that here.


It has looked tough before. Spreading the gospel in the first century Roman empire looked daunting. In the 1800’s infidel Robert Ingersoll claimed that “churches are dying out all over the land.” A 1966 cover of Time magazine asked, “Is God Dead?” In each case, the church of God preached the truth and endured.

The devil would like us to be discouraged and overwhelmed so that we would quit before we got started. God is alive and well. He is working in America and in your town. Let us be realistic and admit we have a challenge in America. Let us also remember that people still have needs that only God can answer.

Boot Camp

A week long training for new home missionaries was held at the Home Missions office during the week of October 19. Seven new church planters attended.

Pictured above (from left to right) are Danny Elliott (Quebec), Brian Williams (New York), Barry Long (Colorado), Josh Bennett (Arizona), Donnie Burke (Colorado), Jeff Goodman (Arizona), Richard Atwood (Home Missions Staff), James Kilgore (California), and Larry Powell (Home Missions Director).

The discussion was informative and encouraging. Two missionaries on the field - Howard Gwartney in Arizona and David Sexton in Virginia - talked to the guys by webcam over the internet.


Here's pizza one day at the office.

Here's supper one night at the Atwood's house. Sandy Atwood makes great lasagna. That's Emily, Lauren, and Leah Williams near the front of the picture.

Of course, we had snacks to hold us over between lunch and supper.
Besides great discussion and good fellowship over food, some of our best times was the prayer together. We had times of laughter, but also times of tears. These are all sincere men with a great burden to reach unsaved people and build a new Free Will Baptist Church. I felt honored to spend a week with them.

ALBUQUERQUE IN AUTUMN

This past weekend (October 9-11), Sandy and I went to New Mexico to visit Mark and Khristi Shores.

We spoke at a Marriage Seminar at their church on Saturday. Here's some of the group:

Sandy and Khristi are doing a little cleaning up.

On Sunday, Mark leads the singing while Khristi plays the keyboard.

The church auditorium and fellowship hall. They have worked hard to make it nice.

From the outside:

The Shores son Josh is in the middle. He is deputy with the county Sheriff's Dept. He is also an eligible bachelor. (Josh, you owe me $10 for putting that in there. ha)

This was also the week of the Balloon Fiesta. It is called the largest ballooning event on earth, the most photographed event on earth, and the largest annual international event held in the United States.

Mark, Sandy, and I got up on Saturday to see the balloons take off. Here's a flying cow:

I counted about 400 balloons in the air at one time.



We had a great weekend with the Shores and the church folks. Pray that they will be able to find a bigger building so they can continue to grow.

Oakland in October

Tim Osborn and the Faith FWB Church in Oakland, Tennessee had an Operation Saturation and participated in a town festival on the same day (October 3). Here's the church's booth.

The Faith Praise Team sings to the early morning crowd

Ken Akers (Masters Men Director) and my wife, Sandy, and I went down for an Operation Saturation. Here is a group from Grace FWB Church in Nashville with Pastor Jamie Lane. We appreciate them driving 3 hours to help.

Tim Osborn was in charge of parking and was riding around in his buggy all day. He does a good job of connecting with people. Between walking around door to door and riding around with him, I got a sunburn.

By the end of the day, Micah Osborn was getting tired. Next to her are Jordan and Emma Osborn.

The church meets in a school. Like a lot of new churches, they have to haul their chairs and equipment and set up and take down each Sunday. Here's Seth Osborn before church.

Free snacks and drinks before church.

The Praise Team leads the morning worship.

Between the two events, a lot of people in Oakland heard about the church.

BATTLE CREEK AND OTHER NEWS

Battle Creek, Michigan (aka Cereal City) is the home of Kellogg and Post. It is also where home missionary Jeff Isaacs is working hard on establishing a new church. The church has just relocated. They bought a former church building that had been unused for 15 years. Jeff and the folks from his church had help from some people from other Free Will Baptist churches in renovating the building. They now have a nice building in a great location.

Ken Akers (Master's Men Director) and I went to Battle Creek on September 25-27 for an Operation Saturation and their first weekend in the new building. A special Dedication Service was held on Friday night with several other pastors attending.

About 80 people were present, including several of the guys who had worked on the church. One man had his thumb 85% severed while working on the church. He had it stitched up and returned to work 2 days later!

On Saturday morning it was raining, but 9 brave souls ventured out to give out literature about the church. We had a great time and some people showed up on Sunday. Here's the 9 and also a picture of Jeff setting out.

Sunday morning was a great service with 138 people present!

Here's pictures of a full parking lot, a full house, and Jeff and Charissa.

Pray for the church as they follow up on the visitors. Pray for Jeff who has back surgery on Thursday, October 1.

Other News:

Dexter Guin and the church in Colorado Springs let us know that they finally got their building permit. Here's how Dexter put it:

Thanks for praying with us! After 3 yrs 9 months we finally pulled our permit today!!!!!!! Thank the Lord!!!!

This from Allen Hall in York, PA:

Hi, Bro. Richard. We baptized 6 all together in the frigid waters of a swimming pool. The first to be baptized was my daughter, Allison. I can't tell you what that did in my heart. Three of those baptized were a dad, mom & son. It was a precious service!

Tim Osborn in Memphis, TN reports that on their 1st anniversary service, the church broke its attendance record with 58!

Howard Gwartney in Arizona had 153 folks present for their 2nd anniversary service!