There are a couple of things coming up this week that will put me in contact with some of the local politicians and wannabee local politicians who will be standing for election in about six weeks from now.

TONIGHT
I’m a guest at a special reception being put on by Brookhaven Conservative Party at the Majestic Gardens in Rocky Point. According to the invitation the purpose of the function is to honor three Courageous Conservatives -

Vincent De Marco, Suffolk County Sheriff
Edward M. Walsh, Chairman, Suffolk County Conservative Party
Roger Blackmore, pastor, Grace Church

Seems like some of those who move in political circles have taken note of the battle I have waged with the Town of Brookhaven over our right to build and that of other churches to do likewise. Personally I’m not over-impressed as I haven’t yet achieved my goal of seeing the town code changed so that freedom of religion once again becomes a reality in our community. I guess the fact that I’m sticking with it against the big party machines has caught a few folks’ eyes – and I am sticking with it.

There is a moral issue here as well as a legal one and I am determined that Councilman Timothy Mazzei and his cohorts need to be held accountable for depriving thousands of local residents of their legal and constitutional rights. In doing so they have shown themselves to be unfit to govern.

THURSDAY
We have a breakfast planned for local pastors and Town Board candidates who have expressed a willingness to undo the work of the 2005 Town Board that has crippled the development of church buildings.

I want these clergy to see who these candidates are so they can get behind them. I would never presume to tell people how to vote and cannot endorse a party or a candidate in a church setting, but I will be advising all of these church leaders of who the pro-church candidates are and suggesting they follow my lead of announcing those names to their congregations. People will then vote as their own conscience dictates.

A busy week in politics, but one that could see a great deal accomplished!

Down the stretch, the Amazin’s are showing they have all the potential of living up to their name. With the Phillies breathing down their necks, they could well blow it all.

Tonight they conceded 13 runs to the lowest scoring team in baseball.

Your pitching has to really stink to pull that off. I’m keeping my cell phone on all night tonight just in case Willie Randolph calls looking for my 23mph fastball! Could I honestly do that much worse than this crew. All I could do is lose and they seem to have that down to a fine art.

About thirty years ago I read a book on small groups by Paul Yonggi Cho, Pastor of the largest church in the world – both then and now (he must be old!).

I became convinced of the value of small groups and considered that they would probably help me building the second biggest congregation on the planet. Back then I hit a brick wall trying to get the concept across to the board of the fairly traditional church I was pastoring in the north east of Scotland.

Over the decades since that board and I parted company, I have always been a firm advocate of the benefit of doing church on two levels – the celebration when the whole congregation comes together on a Sunday and the cell meeting where a smaller, relational group gathers mid-week.

Truth is that I’ve also spent almost twenty five years now trying my utmost to make small groups work and never seeing the level of commitment to them that I would really hope for.

Whatever I’ve tried and however we have structured them, we’ve only ever had a limited percentage of the Sunday crowd involved in small groups. I have even heard complaints about not getting enough teaching from people who don’t bother to make use of what’s provided for them in a small group schedule.

Here’s where I’m at right now.

Small groups are what we do. If people don’t want to go to them, I’m not going to drive myself insane trying to convince them and I’m not going to lose any sleep over their determination not to participate. That’s their choice.

I’m just going to concentrate on making the best possible options available for those who do value building relationships, strengthening their faith, studying the Bible and doing other fun stuff together. There are actually quite a lot of them.

Pastors sometimes ask me how we get small groups to go well – seems they struggle too. I tell them I’m too old to drive myself nuts, so we just set it all out there and those smart enough to take up what’s on offer do. Whether that’s 10% of our Sunday attendance or 100% – it is what it is and that’s good.

Having said all that, we have a great line-up for our fall groups. Lesaya has done an excellent job there. You can check them out here http://www.churchatthemovies.com/smallgroupnews.htm
and email Lesaya if you want more info – lesaya@churchatthemovies.com

This was our sixth Sunday in our new location and I think it would be universally agreed that this has been a great move.

+ It’s a great theater – cleaner, newer, better floorplan for our purposes. Plus stadium seating of course!

+ It’s a great location. Accessible from every direction and only minutes from the Long Island Expressway, it is on a main thoroughfare, so is clearly visible.

+ We have a great team. The new set-up arrangement is going so smoothly that we could probably go for a later start still, but we’ll leave it the way it is, ready for the morning when there is a glitch of some kind and we need the cushion of that extra time before service starts.

+ We have met some great people. Talked to a lot of returning guests today as well as to some first-timers. They are some really good folks who are finding our church a good fit.

+ Our band are always great, but they’ve sounded even better in this setting. Did a great rendition of U2′s song ONE today.

This has been an upgrade in every way.

We’ve had a steady stream of visitors every Sunday since moving to our new location and particularly since our public grand opening two weeks ago. We’re over the 100 mark for the past two weeks alone.

This all brings my attention back to a conversation I had earlier this evening on the subject of retention. I understand that in general a 14% retention rate is normal and so of course I’m hoping that we prove the statistics wrong by upping that number substantially.

There are several things in our favor – in my humble opinion! -

1. The warmth and friendliness of our folks and of the overall environment on a Sunday morning.

2. When we get contact information we follow up as soon as possible and thank folks for taking the time to worship with us.

3. We teach in series which is more likely to bring visitors back to hear the next part.

4. Tomorrow we’ll be detailing our small groups schedule for the fall. Plugging in there would be huge for newcomers.

5. We’re announcing a lunch for new folks next month, together with our revamped 101/The Journey class, which will help the pastors get acquainted with those who have been coming and will also outline clearly for them what we are about.

Looking to see how many fresh faces can be spotted tomorrow and how many of last week’s return!

Nine years ago today I jumped off a bridge – metaphorically speaking, that is.

Sunday September 20th, 1998 I walked away from a comfortable position pastoring an established church to move out and plant a new congregation, with no backing, no money, no people and no guarantee of success.

As an immigrant green card holder, if this did not fly I was totally stuck (screwed in the vernacular). I don’t know how to do anything else and have no qualification for a different vocation. Pastoring is what I have done from the time I left college and if my plans for a new church fell flat, I was going to hit the ground with them – as were my wife and family of course.

Notwithstanding, I took the leap because I felt God wanted me to.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Bottom line – nothing ventured, nothing gained.

If you want to play safe, stay home.

But if you want to walk on water you have to get out of the boat.

Here’s a great post stolen direct from my friend Tony McCollum’s blog – http://tonymccollum.com/
It’s good stuff for pastors and normal people too!

Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. For we are each responsible for our own conduct. Galatians 6:4–5 (NLT)

I love reading blogs. It has been a wonderful source of encouragement and inspiration for me to read the blogs of other pastors and church planters. I have to admit, though, that sometimes reading other blogs can get me a little down. I hear about success after success of others and even though I fight the temptation I find myself comparing what I’m doing with what others are doing. This is dangerous.

The truth is that you really can’t win the comparison game. You either perceive yourself as doing better than others and you slip into pride or you think you’re doing worse than others and you get down. Both are problems and extremely counterproductive. What’s really weird about it is that you could actually be doing quite well and still get down because there will always be somebody out there that is doing better than you. Comparison is a vicious trap.

The Lord has really been speaking to me a lot lately about the parable of the talents. Every time I turn around that parable is in my face. I think one of the main lessons of that story is that, at the end of the day, I’m only responsible for what I’ve done with what I’ve been given to work with. I might not be a 5 talent kind of guy. I might just be a 2 talent guy or a 1 talent guy but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I take the talents I have and I employ them for the Lord. The goal is not to have the most talents. The goal is the take everything I have and put it into play for the Lord.

So, my fellow blog readers, read on. Rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those that weep but REFUSE to compare yourself to others. Pay careful attention to your OWN work. And, when you’ve done your best, enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done.

+ Looks like the Mets have stopped their slide. Still not sure they’ll make the play-offs.

+ Our small groups line-up for the fall is looking very strong indeed. There’s a load of good stuff to choose from, with groups every day of the week except Sundays. We’ll be unveiling them on Sunday.

+ Just about finished preparation for Sunday’s teaching – How To Affair Proof Your Marriage. This is definitely one you shouldn’t miss.

+ I’m curious about some of my overseas blog readers – email me and say hello!

+ Had a great time at Celebrate Recovery last night. Carrie is doing a remarkable job with this program and there were over 40 people there this week.

+ We’ve got all the graphics done for our next series and just wait until you see the invitations. You’ve never seen anything like them – I guarantee.

+ Looks like we’re all set for Halloween, with a block booking of Fun For All, the huge indoor children’s playground in Port Jefferson Station. While most of us don’t like all the insanity associated with that date, it’s important to offer kids an alternative.

+ Since Christmas Eve falls on a Monday this year, we reckon we might see folks choosing either Sunday or Christmas Eve and just going for one, dividing the crowd while doubling the work. So we’re going to go for one blowout event on Christmas Sunday morning, December 23rd.

+ The tally of visitors over the past two weeks is somewhere over 100 now. Some great folks! A lot of course that I haven’t really met or interacted with yet, so we’re planning a getting-to-know-you lunch for our new friends on October 21st at my new favorite bar, Bruno’s in Ronkonkoma.

+ We’re holding off our Celebration Sunday until the first Sunday in November. That way we will not interrupt our ONE series and also it will give us time to work out how to go about doing communion in our new setting without getting too religious or formal about it.

+ Great months ahead of us!

Speaking of pools (see yesterday!), I did have a very interesting experience when I went to my regular pool store to gather the necessary for the ceremonial closing of the above ground monster that occupies a substantial portion of our back yard.

Having been assured several seasons ago that all I needed to do was buy one plastic ball full of heaven knows what and run it through the skimmer prior to covering, I picked one up and headed for the checkout. I guess my progressive bifocals weren’t working too well that day, because I failed to see how long this thing had to be in the skimmer.

So, I asked the girl at the checkout and got an interesting reply -

I dunno. Ain’t got a pool.

Considering these things were flying off the shelves like macaroni in Milan, I would have thought that the sales assistants would have gathered a little information in case just one single customer was too blind or stupid to read it for himself.

Failing that, maybe a good reply would have been, “I’m sorry, I don’t know, but I will find out for you.”

Perhaps I was interrupting her cell phone chat with a couple of buddies who were also wasting their employer’s time. Who knows?

When it comes to my own faith, to God, to church, to eternity, I must admit there are a lot of things I just don’t know. I spent years thinking I was meant to have the answer for every situation, so I faked it – fooling no one I’m sure.

Nowadays I am happy to focus on the little bit I do know and fess up about all the stuff that still baffles me.

Then I tell folks that it’s okay not to be able to dot every “I” and cross every “t”. We call that faith.