Tory Farina

I LOVE Gods Word

It is so refreshing each night as E and I get ready for bed and read Gods word together. I love it and appreciate that it is truth. With so many thoughts floating around these days and so little concrete truths it is comforting to know that this word is worth placing your faith in.

Thank you God for giving us something written down to ponder over. I am using a one year bible to help me chart my reading this year. It is great because it keeps me reading things that I might skip over and I am amazed how God places the passages at the right time in my life.

Social networks are the new church…

Years ago we didn’t have the communication structures that we had today. There was no way to get on face book and let everyone know that you are checking this from your PJ’s in New York. But there was church. You would go three times a week and check in and have potlucks and spend lots of time together because the alternative was living in a rural setting far from friends.

So what can these new social networks teach us about church for the next generation? I think it looks more and more like the early church than ever. There is a large house church resurgence happening today and although I think that is fine I think it misses the point. The future is smaller. It is not necessarily going to get there in peoples homes as there only way of worship. I see us getting smaller via social networks that include homes but then also include large corporate worship. I do see fewer people being as regular as people once were. I went to church ever week. But now many of our church attend ever few weeks and listen online and/or attend a connection group. We can expect this trend to increase. What that means is that we have to get out of the four wall come to us mentality and place church growth and church community at there finger tips.

I love Sea Coasts approach of having a leadership pipeline that enables leaders to grow at there own pace via online classes. I think that social networks like face book will continue connection group conversations all week long instead of just once a week. I also think that blogging and pod casting and other modes of communication bring the Sunday static message to life in new and creative ways.

My problem is I am trying to carve out time to take High Point their. We will be there as we grow and as we are able to bring on volunteers and staff that can help facilitate this… There are people who have never stepped foot in our doors but attend via podcast and give via paypal.

What will this do to the future of church? It will create an exciting wave of revival unlike anything we have ever imagined it could. And we get to be at the very start of it all!

Just a thought.

Multi site is the future of church

This post is in response to a friends email referencing this post...Eric Bryant (the executive pastor of Mosaic) has an interesting blog on multi-site here: http://www.ericbryant.org/blog/2007/05/17/future-prophets/

I think there is a lot of truth to this thought. Video venues are great but there has to be a team of communicators... and I think even LifeChurch.tv is figuring this out. I know that Hillsong has 8 or ten of the preaching team and they fly them all over the world... But they also want to have more under 25 on there than over 25... Think of all the musicians you would need to raise up to facilitate multi site, Think of all of the small group leaders you would need.

What you create is a Farm system. If you spot someone with talent creating huge small groups, accomplishing great things early on you can fast track them into other venues... you have to have good leadership training or you will not be able to go to more than a few multi sites.

I think that every option has plusses and minuses but that there is a combination that would work: video, team teach, one main teacher per campus, rotating teachers... (But I wonder how different that one is to church plant except you see that guy in staff meeting each week.) But I know that this is the wave of the future. I find it interesting that our fellowship is all about autonomy. And one of the things that multi site does is great ride of that autonomy for greater improvements in quality and increased accountability.

Imagine what could be? We brought in a good amount of money last year but if we had that ability to share a full time assistant and having a part time worship coordinator because you are able to share with other bodies... or think of running all the finances through one filter you cut down on duplicate work all over the place. Imagine if you could be apart of O.H. and be apart of us launching our next campus? What if we could have one over arching small group structure or one common sermon series? The cost per dolor seems to me to be fantastic.

So we are being forced to make all of our gear portable again. We can no longer store equipment at the theatre. Crap! But on the other hand... I feel God will be calling us sooner than we think to another venue... it is just too good an opportunity to use thousands of dolor's worth of equipment a prepared message series and music team to put out another line so that more may come to Christ.

Pray for wisdom in this last point.

weekend review

It is always interesting as May hits what the crowed will be and how the weather will affect the church. But last weekend was great 136 came a bunch of kids and we had a great day.

I was walking the dog and ran into my neighbor who said hey you’re the pastor of

High Point

. I said yeah and then it clicked they were there on Easter. My neighbor three houses down came and because her shift is on Sunday she listens to the podcast. My neighborhood doesn’t know it but I am their pastor.

That makes five people on this street that consider High Point their home. Awesome!

Whatever you say I can't do I really can do!

Do great leaders know they are great leaders when they are young?

Just a thought I had yesterday as I was on a walk with daisy. I wonder if they just feel like an ok leader or a bumbling brook of mistakes until someone tells them to write a book on leadership. Someday I want to write a book not about the things I did right. But all the things that I didn’t do right. I think there may be more value in that than in the things I have done right.

I read in Marcus Buckingham’s book, “The One Thing you Need to Know…” he says that great leaders know that success is not the opposite of failure. What a statement! Why are we then so afraid of failure? You have to fail in order to have great successes. It is a natural byproduct of doing something worth doing.

I have think that great leaders are born out of great failures. Here is why… first it weeds out the week. If you fail doing something and get back up to do it again that takes a lot of chutzpa (I have always wanted to use that word in a sentence). How many people never get back up? Or they just leave whatever they were working on and go work for someone else were it is “safe”. So it weeds out the weak.

Second if you get up and go forward you are stronger. You know that you can take more than you were just dealt. If you are stronger and less concern about the gravity of the mistake you just made or the failure you just bumbled in then how can you not take greater risk and with greater risk comes greater reward.

This brings me to my third thought… Risk! Name one great bible hero who didn’t risk? Balls out through it all on the table and take the giant leap into the unknown. It is “easier” with God on our side which is the essence of faith. So why isn’t faith a synonym with risk? Maybe easier isn’t the right word… but at least your not alone which is way more fun than being alone.

So I raise my coffee cups to all of us leaders who the jury is still out on whether we will be great…

One more thought… it is ok if you are not a leader. I don’t think we really feel that freedom to not be a leader but if your not your not. It has to do with gifts and calling not job description. I just happen to resonate with leaders and feel called to be one.

Lets God “fail forward” until someone says we can’t do it and then let’s go show them we can!

Awsome to know that it works...

A healthy church works!

I just got done talking with a neighbor who told me he is bringing his workout buddy to church tomorrow. His name is Gio… He told me that the church was very welcoming and open and casual and he felt like he should bring Gio because Gio told him last week he was probably going to Hell for the things he had done. They chatted and Gio accepted the invitation to come to church tomorrow. I just so happen to be preaching on Bitterness and forgiveness and one of my main points is you have to receive forgiveness to truly give it…

Pray he receives tomorrow and I will pray for your service to be stocked with people like Gio.

You “ will rebuild the ancient ruins

You “ will rebuild the ancient ruins

and restore the places long devastated;

You” will renew the ruined cities

that have been devastated for generations.” ^

Isaiah 64:4

I was ordained last week with the Assemblies of God. What an amazing experience. I have gone through all of there hoops to be considered one whom they put there approval on as a minister of the gospel. I by there standards am not a wacko. Whhooo! Glade to hear it!

That night as I was prayed for by one of my favorite people and hero of mine Dr. Gordon Anderson of North Central University God gently whispered words of affirmation in my ear. It was the only way to explain the moment when I felt his presence all over me and felt a confirming assurance that I was in the right place doing what I was called to do.

Then at the end of the service Pastor St. John read the above verse as a closing and something in me broke. I began to weep as I felt god was reaffirming the vision he gave me long ago of a church that would go into a city and redeem the city. I realized the potential of going into suburbs around the cities and around the world with a church in a movie theatre concept. One church multiply locations. Sure everyone is talking about this but I feel like we will actually do it.

Think of it… A church that could restore the places long devastated. A church that will grow when others haven’t a church that will stand as a beacon of hope and potential a place where we can see people come to Christ. I don’t know the time frame. We need to build this base in Inver Grove Heights. Someday, High Point or churches like it will be all over this city transforming the dead places into places of hope.

My current prayer is that I would grow enough as a leader in order to accommodate this much. But isn’t that like God? To call us into his service and then train us for the job he calls us. Who or what could we be? I don’t know… all I know is that this church is coming to a theatre/ business park/ school/ who knows what near you.

Sunday wrap up…

It was an awesome day, again. We keep having these days it seems where God just packs the hour 15 minute service with energy and excitement and joy. The missionary did great and we were able top give him $1,500 dolor’s to help them get to Sweden.

The crowd was great, for as nice a day is it was. I love to see people hang out with the church family before the BBQ’s got kicked of. We had 145 show up and continue to see growth. I love growth. Healthy organisms grow. We are healthy and are growing.

At lunch our waiter was a young girl who was surprised that we were pastors and went to High Point. I love that look when they see Pastor Courtney with her styling hat and E and I with our non churchy attire. Her parents had already come and were begging her to check it out. So I tipped her well and hope we made a good impression. You never know what people think of you. So it is always good to keep that in mind.

Time to work on next week...