Hitchhiking to Substance

Happy Fourth Anniversary Substance!

Can you believe that it’s already been four years!?! God has really been doing amazing things.
In case you weren’t there this last Sunday, we bought everyone a $5 dollar Caribou Coffee Shop Card as a celebration gift! We love you guys! Thanks for making Substance such a stinking cool place to call home.

Believe it or not, we’ve had over 80 new people come to our newcomers luncheons at our house this month! (Our carpet is totally trashed!) But man, it is so much fun to hear all the stories of people whose lives are being transformed. I mean, I have never in my whole life heard as many radical testimonies! I can barely go into a coffee shop without having someone tell me of their 180! Church: we are living the dream.

People have been asking me: “When are we gonna add a third Sunday Service?” Frankly, I don’t know. In fact, believe it or not, I’m in no rush to do so. After all, this is a marathon, not a 100-yard dash. And God gave strict instructions about times like these: “even during the [busiest] seasons you must rest” (Exodus 34:21).

Like most people, life really picks up in the Fall – doesn’t it? I think that one of the hardest things for my wife and me has been trying to slow down in such an opportunistic season. We went to the youth ministry parent night last Wednesday. Then we had a last minute trustee meeting on Thursday to discuss all of our huge facility decisions. Then on Saturday, I led worship for the 40+ cookout. And then toss in a full Sunday with a newcomers luncheon and a 101 class… and I am wiped out!!!! I feel like a presidential candidate… (but unlike them, I promise not to make promises! : )

To make matters worse, my seminary classes at Bethel are in full swing! So if you’re talking to me and I start spacing out (while drooling), I hope you’ll understand. But, rest assured dear friends: my family and I have been relaxing together as well.

This last Friday I took my wife on a hot date! (Man, I love being married to Carolyn!)
She promised me that she would go on the new roller-coaster ride at the Mall of America. But when she saw it, she totally chickened out!!!!    Can you believe that?

And, then on Saturday, we took all three kids to the Minnesota Arboretum down in Chaska.    Wow!  Now that is a gorgeous place.    …It’s like a thousand acre landscape garden – with oriental gardens, hedge-mazes, and a endless flow of 17 year olds getting awkward senior pictures taken. And I realize that most people don’t get turned on by Arborvitae foliage, but man, If you have a family, you gotta go sometime.

But here’s the deal church: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Mt. 16:26). In other words, in the busyness of life, we need to tend to the fundamental things… our souls. And yes, I am concerned about three services. But I am far more concerned about my relationship with God, my wife, and my kids. And frankly, God has similar plans for you.

This has been a fantastic four years for Substance church.   But let’s take care of our souls first so that, four years from now, we can still be around to enjoy it!   Make sense?    Stop and Smell the Roses !!!

Happy Anniversary!

Stop & Smell!

Wow.  After last Sunday, I’m still scratching my head!  Where did all of those people come from?   Did you know that the last two Sundays, our attendance has jumped by almost 350 new people!?   (& it’s more like 600 if we compare it with our mid-summer attendance slumps).  Do you guys realize how crazy that is!?!?  People said, “You’re gonna grow fast!”  But I had no idea that we’d be packing out both our services all ready!

Sure, many of these were our college student coming back to Minneapolis for class; but, did you see all of those young families?  Wow!  God is really doing something.

And what’s amazing to me is the sheer quantity of people who’ve never really been in church before… or at least in a contemporary worship church before.   (I’ve had numerous people recently call me “Father Peter.”)  Not surprisingly, I’ve had the sudden revelation that:   We’re not merely a church of evangelicals or charismatics.  We are officially a spiritual hospital for all types of people – believers, unbelievers, and those in-between.

But we need to celebrate this!   Seriously, many of you leaders have worked your tails off trying to put this together.  I wish I could plan some sort of big old-testament style feast — maybe we should slay some big animal this Sunday and roast it  (…or maybe not)  In fact, if you see a ministry captain or leader anywhere, make certain you pray for them and bless them.  After all, this growth wasn’t a total surprise.  Many of our leaders have been working hard to reach out to our community.

I was recently telling our elders a word that the Lord spoke to my conscience recently.  Once you all get to know me, I’m somewhat of a “church health” guru.  I’d rather have a healthy church than a big church.  In some ways, we’ve purposefully gone out of our way to avoid marketing Substance.  I almost wanted to hold back the growth so that we can get our leadership teams built up better.  (After all, growth without infrastructure just puts more political pressure on me!)  Yet, as I was in prayer, the Lord showed me that my motives were a bit selfish.

I kept sensing the Lord ask me:  “Peter, what is health? “   “What degree of Bible knowledge does a person need before they are healthy?”    And I kept getting this image of a portable triage hospital just behind the front lines of a war. 

In case you don’t know:  In a hospital like this, the doctors have to keep a rather extreme priority scheme.  It’s not like a normal hospital where little kids with hang-nails get equal attention as people with broken arms.  They have to prioritize the life-threatening people.  And after having this image, I had this sense that, God wants us to be that mobile military hospital.

We are going to have a disturbing number of needs that we will be unable to meet.  We are going to have long term Christians wanting programs for themselves and their families while we have new believers quietly dying on our doorsteps.

And I had this sense that our priority scheme is going to be disturbing to long-term Christians who are accustomed to being in slower growth churches… where they are accustomed to having their hair stroked by a never-ending list of “comfort programs”.   You know… programs that are valuable for Christian growth… but are hard to maintain when you’re constantly giving spiritual CPR to lost people.

But more than this.  I also sensed from my conversation with the Lord that many of our leaders are going to pick up burdens that God has never called us to carry.  And if you’re a leader who is reading this, remember this:   This is God’s church, not ours!  He’s never called anyone to burn out for him.  And if we need to simplify our lives and experience a little more church chaos, then so be it.  Feeding the multitudes has never been a problem for God.   It’s only a problem for those of little faith.

So as we move forward.  Let’s look to heaven.  Let’s offer our loaves and fish.  Let’s give thanks!  And let’s celebrate our growth!   And as the Bible says:  “Let’s party like it’s 1999.”  (Or… maybe that’s not from the Bible… I think that verse is in 2 Prince 4:5  … one of those Apocryphal books)

No… but seriously!   I love you guys.  And as we celebrate and Sabbath, let’s trust the Lord to take care of all these delightful new people!

Talk about a weekend to remember!
I threw tomahawks… I hurled dodge balls… and I heaved a bulging piece of granite towards the sky.
“What was I doing,” you ask?
I was at Substance Men’s Retreat 2008!

For years, we’ve been wondering how we could infuse more testosterone into our retreat, and I believe we found the answer.  Our retreat planning team dreamed up the craziest contest which was majestically called “the Renaissance Challenge of Man!”  (But when you say it… you have to say it like it was straight out of the movie Braveheart).

Basically, w e had around 100+ guys do an 8-event olympiad consisting of numerous manly contests (such as: Rock Heaving, Tomahawk throwing, Golf Chipping, Tie Tying… and the ever competitive “Pick-up line contest”).  I was hoping we’d have some sort of shirtless wood chopping contest… or at least a small hog-wrestling opportunity; but, alas, I was not disappointed.  The hair on my chest literally grew bigger and burlier by the time the weekend was over.

And wow!  Our young college students demonstrated some missile -like throwing-power in our 40 man dodge-ball game.  (Only four men suffered concussions – so, all in all, it was a great time!)
And it was a powerful time in the Spirit as well.  I was shocked by the sheer quantity of spontaneous worship and prayer that was breaking out throughout the camp.  Seriously, these guys were heaving more than mere rocks… these guys were casting off their sin natures in a pretty sobering way.

On Friday night, I think I had around 5 guys confess their sins to me in a pretty humbling way.  I mean, I haven’t seen that much desperation and devotion in a while.  And when I thought about the sheer quantity of authentic men we have in our church, I couldn’t help but think: We are a church that is destined to accomplish huge things.

I mean, God LOVES passionate seekers like that.  And Substance Church, I think that we’ve got a good number of them right here in our own church community!
Hats off to Pastors Nick and Pete… and all of the team that helped them pull of this amazing event!  Jeff Beale, Jeff Zaugg, Ben Tyvol, David Theobald… and all the others who helped pull this thing off… thanks a million.
Substance men will never be the same!!!!

Shirtless men throwing knives: Priceless!

Talk about an exciting week!!!   This week we are starting a brand new message series called “De-stress My Life”.  As I was preparing it a few months back, I just knew that this series is going to change people’s lives.  Every time I’d tell someone about it, they’d say: “Dude, that’s gonna rock!”  (Which is the Substance way of saying: “Golly Pastor, that’ll be a very swell message”).

I’m actually teaching on five different “kinds of stress” that steal our peace.  But here’s a little self-test for you.  In fact, if you answer “Yes” to any of these questions, you need to make plans to be there:

#1).  I regularly feel the urge to body slam my computer:        YES . . . . . . . NO

#2).  I occasionally have an itchy middle finger when I drive on the Interstate:    Y   . . . . N

#3).  I tend to drink more than 5 shots of espresso per day:    Y . . . . . . N

#4).  You recently had an “Oh-yea-you-think-your-day-was-bad?” debate with a loved one:

#5).  You watched more than 5 hours of political news coverage last week:    Y or N

(Now tally up your score)

If you answered “Yes” to any of the above questions, you’re probably stressed out!   But, God’s got fantastic news for you!   And here’s the catch:  You have to be in church to hear it!   (unless you podcast! : )

The truth be told, it’s been a pretty stressful two weeks for me.  This weekend, I’m supposed to be sharing profound answers on de-stressing our lives; so, how ironic is it that I’m totally stressed out!?  Believe it or not, we have over 100,000 people reading about our church this week!  (We just sent out a 50,000 home direct-mail piece).  So, like a total dork, we decided to revamp our entire web-site at the last minute!  (Probably not on God’s agenda for my life).

But this I know:   God is a God of peace and rest.   And, despite the silly little mole-hills that I turn into mountains, God is in control of my life.  And when I allow that truth to sink deep into my soul, it ultimately changes the way I view reality.  My life rocks.  And I could endlessly lose myself in gratitude.

So people:  trust me in this:   Every last one of us needs an alternate view of reality.  (a de-stressed view)

So, if you struggle with time management or rest… get ready to be set free.  This is called “Good News” for a reason!

We’ll see you there!