It was in October of 2009 that God gave me the vision for Exponential.  The next few months consisted of making sure this was God’s will for our lives and not just a bad reaction to the pepperoni pizza I had eaten the night before.  A part of this process took Lisa and I out to San Diego for a week-long church planter’s assessment.  It was a grueling week of assessments, psychological testing, team exercises, quizzes, presentations and constantly having 25+ people evaluate your every move.

Although we had previously discussed names for the potential church, God didn’t confirm any until Lisa and I were back in our hotel room after yet another intense day of evaluation.  That was two years ago today and of course the name chosen was Exponential Church.

The reason for this was quite simple.  During my years working for Purpose Driven Ministries, part of the teaching I did for pastors was about Exponential Faith Thinking.  Essentially this means that you must have a vision, goals and dreams SO BIG that if God doesn’t show up and do something miraculous, those dreams and goals will never come true.

By thinking this big, it does two things for you.  First, it will drive you to your knees in prayer begging God to do something great on your behalf.  Since you know you can’t  do it without Him, this big vision will force you to be utterly and totally dependent on Him.  Second, when your dreams and goals are fulfilled, you won’t possibly be able to receive the credit for it…all the praise will go to how great God is, not how smart you are.

This whole line of thinking fit perfectly with the vision God had given me.  What I was experiencing in San Diego was only confirming that. It’s a huge vision that I’m not nearly smart enough to accomplish without God doing something great in and on my behalf.  The name Exponential also described the type of impact I know God is calling us to have.  Yes, we are starting in Harrisburg and that is our primary place God has called us to reach, but I truly believe that we’re going to do things that will make an eternal difference in our state, nation and world.

Now you might be saying, “That’s awesome but what about the .tv part?”  Glad you asked.  So 2 years ago today as God confirmed the name, I immediately decided to go ahead and buy the domain name.  One problem… .com, .org, .net, .info and many of the other common extensions are owned by others.  Immediately God reminded me of that a couple of churches that I greatly admire have the .tv extension…in fact some of them even made it a part of their name since it’s still uncommon here in the US.  A quick search and sure enough www.ExponentialChurch.tv was available.  A month later when we filled out all of our legal paperwork, I included the .tv in the name so people won’t have to guess how to find us on the web.

So now you know.  Two challenges for you:  First, are you thinking Exponentially in your own life and ministry?  Life is too short to waste it on small dreams.  Second, if you’re a part of ExponentialChurch.tv are you serving in some way?  The vision is too big and the stakes too high for you to simply sit on the sidelines as a spectator.  Discover what it is that God is calling you to do to help make this Exponential vision a reality!

1. “Finding the One“-  The first four messages on this list all come from the “One” series on marriage, dating, relationships and sex. This message was about making sure Jesus is first in your life.
2. “Q & A“-  People submitted their questions about anything to do with relationships and I answered.
3. “Lets Talk About Sex“-  Duh…what do you think it’s about. 
4. “Finding the Two“-  Once Jesus is first in your life, how do you find and then keep a spouse until death do you part.
5. “The Biggest Lie You Tell Yourself“- The conclusion to the “ME*TRADE” series.  In it I discussed how each morning we wake up on a quest for happiness instead of a quest for truth…which leads to…the biggest lie you tell yourself.
6. “Renewing Your Mind“- The opening message in the ME*TRADE series where we learned that if you’re not happy with the outcomes of your life, it’s not about going back and making different decisions, but rather changing your thinking which leads to better decision-making.
7. “The Truth About Obedience“- My wife Lisa’s message on 6 steps to being obedient to God which was a part of the “Jonah” series.
8. “Generation Next or Now“- The opening message in the “I Believe In You” series speaking to the Millennial Generation to not put off making a difference with their lives now!
9. “The Jonah in All of Us“- The opening message in the “Jonah” series about how when God speaks to us there always seems to be an easier option to get out of it, but beware because if you choose that path storm clouds and perhaps worse are about to come.
10. (TIE)  “The Two People Everyone Needs in Their Life“-  Part 3 of the “I Believe in You” series about the value of having a mentor and being a mentor to someone else.
    “One Simple Truth“- Conclusion of the ME*TRADE series where I challenged everyone to realize God knows better what’s best for our lives than what we do.
    

As I said, you never know why the Spirit may have you say something…gotta trust “peachy keen” really needed to be heard by someone…at least that’s what I’m telling myself. 

• As a reminder, we’ll be meeting on Saturday morning for the next 2 weeks.
  Saturday December 24, 10am
  Saturday December 31, 10am

It’s been awesome over the past 2+ days now to have received so many stories of life change.  All but one of them so far though have needed to be tweaked for various reasons.  I fault myself for some of this so I wanted to do this post to help those of you who are still working on the assignment.  So here are a couple of things that either I failed to say or a reminder of what we’re trying to accomplish.

1. Remember who you’re doing this for-  This is probably my fault for not making it clear enough but remember not to write it as how you would tell it to me.  Think about a neighbor or friend who is far from God…how would you tell it to them.
2. Write it conversationally-  This is my big regret from Sunday.  I should have made it clear that even though you’re writing it down so it will ultimately be easier to memorize, you need to write it the way you talk.  So my suggestion is  try saying some things out loud and then write down what felt most natural.
3. Reminder:  Keep it under 3 minutes-  Most have done a pretty good job of keeping it short but some have gotten a bit too detailed.  Usually where this happens is giving extra travelogue that doesn’t really add to the story for the listener.  For example, a few people have mentioned specific people by name and exact locations down to the street address.  All this will do is get your listener thinking about “do I know that person” or “do I know where that is” instead of concentrating on the real story, which is how much Jesus has changed your life.
4. On the flip side…give some details- Now you’re really confused right?  A couple of the emails I have gotten were only bullet points.  Again keep in mind the purpose of this exercise is to have written out your full story in the way that you would say it.  So for example if I just point the bullet point of “anxious” as one of my before Jesus problems, I still don’t know what I’m going to say in the moment.  For each “problem” you should have a 1-2 sentence example of that.  Let me give you an example from my own life showing you both the wrong way to do it (#3 above) and the right way to do it (#4 here).

In our hypothetical situation lets say your friend mentions how stressed out and anxious they are.  Here’s the wrong way
to do it.  “You know before I became a Christian I used to be the same way.  I remember back to the spring of 1993.  I was
a sophomore in college at Hagerstown Community College.  I was in Mr. Baker’s accounting class getting ready to take my
final and was so nervous about it that I literally threw up I was so nervous and anxious about it.  But then later that
summer Keith Skidmore and Marvin Bower shared with me…”

Notice all the extra travelogue that doesn’t really help advance the story.  I could say the exact same thing this way.  “You
know before I became a Christian I used to be the same way.  In fact, I remember once being so nervous about taking a
test in school that I threw up beforehand.  But then two men shared with me…”

What I’m trying to get you to see is that there is a big difference between the written word, where you want a lot of details,
and the spoken word where you want just enough details to not distract from your main theme.

5. Avoid the Christianese- Think about how you would communicate to someone who has never stepped foot in a church or ever
opened up a bible.  Despite my warnings on Sunday about avoiding these, this has been the biggest thing that I keep seeing over
and over.  Here are some examples of words and phrases that people have included that I’ve told to go back and fix.

• My repentance prayer
• Watered the seeds my parents had planted
• Jesus lives in my heart
• Asked Jesus into my life
• Been redeemed
• Got saved
• Made Jesus Lord and Savior
• Received salvation
  As I said Sunday…all of the above things are true…but just not the best way to say them in a way a person far from God will understand.  As a game, try to come up with the better way to say each of the above.If I think of anything else, I’ll put it in another post.  In the meantime…happy writing.  Can’t wait to hear the stories of how God makes opportunities available for you to share your 3 minute story in a humble, interesting, and clear way!