This past weekend I did something totally unspiritual. Or so it seemed. I went to Lake George. A town my parents once wrote off as touristy and cheap.

So, Tina and I went over to the American National Car Show. The show itself is probably 3,000 cars. But the real action is on the streets. Cars line both sides of the street, hotel and restaurant parking lots and any other nook and cranny available. They drive, tow and truck these cars in. Dressed in my denim jacket I have had since I was 12 replete with my Ford Cobra insignia(Of the same year.) and my Jesus Freak Racing Hat and Shirt("Spreading the gospel at over 100 miles per hour"-Thanks Jim and Lu...), I fit right in with the thousands who set up chairs on both sides of the street. Folks we are talking tens of thousands of people. All with one goal. To have fun.

As we walked down the streets and admired the vehicles, the road is shut off. Now it is a cruise night. Just like American Graffiti these cars cruise up in down Main Street, lighting up tires, decibels of horsepower rattling windows and smoke pouring off tires and the occasional engine. This is one of the things that made America great. Ingenuity, guts and the "senseless" pursuit of fun.

Now my reason for going away has been the stress of many things required some time away. Health, finances, vehicles, children and ministry. I just needed some "mindless" play time. So I wandered about a car show for 4 or 5 hours and sat on the street watching cars and God began to speak to me.

The psychic needed someone to speak to her heart. The young driver in front of me with an unhappy wife needed someone to "father" him. The old man who had his street rod for 43 years was looking pretty lonely.

Now you may not be into cars and that is ok. But I am and I spent hours admiring beautiful Chevy's and Fords from ages gone by. (Remember this is the American Car Show.) So, we were looking at cars from the 1920's and price tags in the hundreds of thousands. Sure, I thought about the victims of Katrina and so did they. Money was being collected all over the place.

And the Spirit of God spoke to me. AS I wandered about vehicles that were stock and nonstock, standard motors and supercharged, original paint and paint that can only have originated in the eyes of someone tapped into heaven, I began to see something.

You might like a stock 1955 Chevy or a 1965 Mustang, but I would probably go for one of the supercharged vehicles equipped with tires 24" across, wheelie bars, pushing 1,000 horsepower and exhaust that sounds like a jet taking off. (Yeah-some things never change-I was a drag racer, through and through.)

But here is the deal. What I like and what you like are still cars. And my idea of a paint job and yours may differ. And we can argue about what models and makes are the best but when it is all over, said and done-they are cars (And trucks.)

And whether you believe in apostles and prophets, tongues or no tongues, healing or no healing, we are all children of the Most High God. My own children do not look alike so why do you feel that I must walk or talk like you, or vice versa?

The beauty of this show was the diversity in makes and models, paints and interiors, motors and tires. And this was pretty cool. In so many shows, they group makes and models together. This show they do not do that. Diversity.

Church, we need to look at that and begin to cross pollinate. The world did it in this show. And we can do it as well. Why? For the sake of the Gospel.

As I wandered this show, I saw he word ministry all over it. Evangelism-the carrying of the Go(o)d News to people who most likely won't be setting in the pew next to you. (Or the chair.)

It is time for us to begin to go where they are as they aren't racing to where we are. Will you and I leave our comfort zone and begin to walk out the responsibility of our relationship.

I am already planning for the next one. And there is a blues and jazz concert in between that I will try and get to.

In many people's eyes I have checked out of Christianity, what with stepping down and all. Sorry folks-I am hoping I have checked in to the ministry of Jesus.

Each one of us has someone we really care about who doesn't know Jesus. And we want them to know Him.

Current teaching often talks about the "value" of being saved but frequently emphasizes the "hows." God has placed the gifts of the Spirit(1Corinthians 9)in the body of Christ to reach the lost and build His body. He has given us the Holy Spirit for boldness and revelation and love(There is more.)But so many wander around wondering what they are supposed to do. Signs and wonders are for the unbeliever. We will never find those people in church because if they wanted to be in church they would most likely be there. These people will be found outside the church.

A friend of mine is a drag racer. (He also does a lot of other work.) He won't see his racing buddies in church. They are at the drag strip...on Sundays. Church does not work for him. Will we be so religious that when someone doesn't show up on Sunday we put them down? What are we thinking? The same Jesus who saved you and I got dissed by the same religious structure. "Healing on Sunday? Sacrilege!" God knows we need to change the way we think about church. My friend loves the Lord and He is embraced the teachings of the Lord to "seek and save the lost." Jude tells us to pluck them from the fires.

I meditate about writing a book that takes the scriptures at their true meanings. Somehow we need to take the religion out of the church. Religion is man's way of reaching God, BUT salvation is God's way of meeting man. We need to back up the train and see what we have missed. People thinking they can sit home and angels are going to evangelize because they are lazy. Do you know that over 80% of the people who come to church come because you and I bring them?

The scripture at the top of this page talks about going out and getting the people who need Jesus. As I watch the ramifications of Katrina and the hurricane activity it is all about Jesus. He is the one these people need. Yes, they need food and supplies and people mumble and complain about the government but the government's job is not to "fix" it. Jesus told the church how to help people.

I want my friend to feel like he belongs to the body of Christ as he chases down people at the dragstrip or has young men helping him out as he works on his racer. Most of his former friends have left him because he spends so little time in church.

The church needs evangelists. The church needs leaders in the church who emphasize the salvation of people above many of the programs they employ. Paul told Timothy to "do the work of an evangelist."

The church over all needs to concentrate on the work that Jesus set before us.

I am going to write about a lot of things here. I hope you will, too. I am a pastor of 10 years who was not called as a pastor but answered a Macedonian call. I came in one way and walked out another. Over the last 3 months I have had a lot of time to think about what church looks like. You may not share my perspectives and I, not yours, but I believe we are sitting on the edge of an apostolic change. Many speak about reformation(I am a reformer. I do not think the American church reflects the scriptures in many cases but I do not believe God has a Plan B to the church, either, so my choices are A) Don't go B) Change it or C) Start my own.

I hope you will hang in there to the end.

Katrina(The most recent hurricane in the US) has been a wakeup call. Many will die as the result of it. On the other hand the church needs to be mobilized and doing what it is called to do. I am sure there are a "lot of me's" out there who have commanded the pulpit and have cried out Sunday afternoons, "Where is the change? What do I need to do here?" We left Sunday afternoons dejected, disappointed, discouraged, while the congregations went home full for another week. There has to be a change in the church of the US. We need to develop more than an apostolic mindset or reformation or even a strategy. We need to become Kingdom minded seeking the lost and discipling the saved. And not so they can know more than their neighbor, but so they can do it.

If you read the scripture from Luke about going to the highways and the byways, then you know the nature of this blog and my heart. I can not look at what is going on and not be heartbroken. There have been times where I have just wanted to pack up and move somewhere else just to see people who embrace the gospel and change and do not feel the need for weekly feedings to get a fix. I am not against Sunday mornings or any other time, but I am clearly opposed to the stockpiling of knowledge and the not sharing of it. I think the parable about the man who wanted to build more barns for his stuff is a clear representation of where the church has sat. On the other hand there are those of us who want to see it change.

I love going to a good meeting or a good conference, but am I the only one who feels that "I should be doing that," when I leave.

Over the coming days I hope we will embrace the idea that we are called to go to the streets.

Jump in here any time.

We love you!

Am I the only one who is struck with frustration about the church? As a pastor I had my share of "WOW! Where did all those people come from?" only to find out they had church hopped (They came from somewhere else.) . Now I am not against church hopping as long as one of your compelling reasons is to be a blessing, not to see how much you can take.

I just completed a season of ministry (10 years) where I oversaw people. I trained to the best of my abilities. Years later people I trained will tell me their new church is just getting around to what I shared with them 5-6 years ago and more. But just having a church full of people does not excite me. And many have not changed and that is heartbreaking to me.

A typical week for me included studying for the Sunday morning. (All eyes are on Sunday morning.) My church has never been larger than 60 people, so job placement is a little more difficult but on a Sunday morning I would look into the eyes of people who just came out of worship (Good music is important but not the be all and end all.) , and would wait for what was going to happen. Sometimes I felt like they just needed to check it off and say, "I went to church."

And with each day the dream that had burned inside of me got further away. I began to feel critical and then I began to feel hopeless and ultimately burnt out. We were fast becoming a club. Well, if I wanted to belong to a club I would have joined one.

And I wonder what the next step is. I know it is about souls.