Hanging with my Nephews

One of my favorite things to do...hang with my nephews. Check out a few of our favorite times. Robert, Grace, and the boyz live on the Northshore and are expecting a fourth. Woohoo! My favorite is Aylor's song and dance to Aladdin.



You can see more videos at www.youtube.com/IMNEWORLEANS.

Bolt's Highlight Reel

Enjoy some of my favorite videos over the last month of Bolt. He is almost 4 months old and is growing like a beast. This little man has brought AB and I amazing joy. I love being a dad. Thank you Jesus for this little blessing!



Check out more videos at www.youtube.com/IMNEWORLEANS

The Cambridge Seven

I am sitting in class at seminary. Dr. Taylor just highlighted a group of studs from the late 1800s and early 1900s. They are called "The Cambridge Seven". Basically, these guys were in the top of their class at Cambridge, sold everything, and moved to China as missionaries. They joined up with Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission. Read more.

What is unique about this picture?


These guys were dressed like the Chinese! They were becoming indigenous with the tribe that they are trying to reach. I think it is absolutely hypocritical that we celebrate these great missionaries and others like William Carey, Lottie Moon, Hudson Taylor (all of which took an indigenous approach)...and yet blast those who pursue indigenous work in American cities. We have received quite a lot of crap from people (mostly religious conservatives) who have disagreed with our missionary strategy in Uptown. Most of these people are huge fans of the above missionaries. This is absolute hypocritical.

We will encourage our foreign missionaries to get to know their people group and even to become like that people group. But if we do anything outside of the typical 1950s Southern Alabama or Mississippi style of ministry, we immediately get resistance. In my own tribe (SBC), I am not completely discouraged. There are a lot of people who are embracing an indigenous mission right here in the US.

A few weeks ago, Dr. Hammond and team from NAMB visited our church. He called me before he came to let me know that he was coming. I love what he said. Basically he encouraged me to not change anything that we had been doing just because he was visiting. He said that he was coming to learn from us. I was blown away by this. Dr. Hammond and team took us out to lunch after the worship and were completely encouraging and supportive. They asked a lot of questions and also gave us some great advice. Dr. Hammond has a great passion for indigenous urban church planting all over North America. I pray that God continues to use him all over this continent.


So...when a youth minister puts on a concert, when a senior adult minister facilitates a BINGO night, when a pastor hosts a hunting banquet at his country church, when a young stubborn guy plants a church in a bar in Uptown NOLA...remember "The Cambridge Seven". Don't be so quick to judge. Reach your world.

Yo Dude...Put Your Pants Back On

I have been motivated, challenged, humbled, ticked-off, and excited by a blog that I just read from my friend Perry Noble. The title of his blog is "Attention Pastors: Keep Your Penis In Your Pants". Warning...this will offend people.

Sex is stinkin everywhere. It doesn't matter what you are doing or where you are going, sex is a plague in our society. I hate that every time I try and watch TV, I have someones boobs bouncing all over the screen. To walk in sexual purity takes a lot of intentional focus and living. I pray daily for God to protect me from the evil one. My father-in-law told me at our wedding to never think that I was above the temptations of satan. PLEASE JESUS, SURROUND ME WITH YOUR PROTECTION AND POWER.

I am especially blown away by the number of ministers that are falling to sexual sin. Honestly, my emotions shift from anger to sorrow. I am also aggravated because of what I read in I John. Most of these preachers who are falling are probably not even saved in the first place. We are preaching through I John and it clearly draws a line between those who are in Christ and those who aren't. So I want to ask my friends (yes that is you Seminary guys as well) are you in HABITUAL SEXUAL SIN. If you are, you probably don't know Jesus. "God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we LIE and DO NOT practice the truth". (I John 1:5-6)

I agree with Perry that it is time cut the crap, stop playing church, and attack this monster head on. Another man that is attacking this problem head on is Mark Driscoll. He is currently preaching through Song of Solomon. The series is called "Peasant Princess". Play the WHAC-A-FOX video game that one of his staff created.

He even has a free online book called "Porn-Again Christian: A frank discussion on pornography and masturbation". I appreciate and join with these men in a war against the lies of this world. Right now, satan is winning this battle in our homes and churches. It is time for us to counter-attack this plague with the power of Christ.

If you are in bondage from this sickness...REPENT & TURN TO JESUS & PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!

Sunday Night Reflections

Another one bites the dust...here are some thoughts from the day:

• SPECIAL THANKS TO PEACHTREE CORNERS BAPTIST CHURCH and MONTE NICHOLS! Thanks for buying us our new chairs. They look great. We are praying that many people will sit in these chairs being transformed by the Gospel.

• This was my second Sunday off...in regards to preaching the Word. It was nice to come a little late this morning. Great job volunteer teams! And Page did another amazing job preaching the Word. I feel incredibly blessed to have such a gifted teacher and friend on our crew. Listen to his messages at www.vintagenola.org/podcast.
  
• God's Spirit was extremely rich in both gatherings today. It was a calming and healing atmosphere. The music and teaching was solid and the crowd was excited.
• The band was amazing today. Probably because Wendy was singing. Andrew has done a great job mixing and matching a bunch of our people into a few bands. I never get tired of hearing Drew sing. Even when he is sick.
• I shared tonight during the welcome that I spent most of the afternoon with Bolt napping in my arms. As I watched him sleep, God painted a great picture in my soul. He reminded me that for many people, our Vintage worship gatherings are a time when people can cuddle up in our Father's arms. This city can be really tough to live in. I pray that our church will always be a place of refuge for the tired and weary.
• We have a Family Meeting this next week (Sunday Night 10/19 @ 7:30pm). I am extremely grateful to God for all that He has done through our church, but we have so much more to do. Our Family Meeting will be a time of prayer and vision casting. We will also update the church on our current status. Let me offer this little disclaimer...we won't only hug and kiss at this meeting. We are going to lay out our expectations upon our membership. A lot of our members have stepped it up big time, but a lot haven't. That won't be accepted or allowed at Vintage. There are plenty of other churches that would happily welcome consumers. Not our church.
  
• Little moment of encouragement. One of our faithful guests came to me at the end of the service in tears. After some small discussion she shared with me that she felt like Vintage had come to Uptown just for her. She told me that she felt incredibly blessed by the fact that Christ would place our church in her community. Thank you Jesus for your church and vision.
• We spent some time praying for our LIFEgroup leaders. We have 13 LIFEgroups meeting all over NOLA. I am hearing some great stories from these groups as they study Vintage Jesus.
• Our attendance has remained pretty much the same with around 100 total for the day. During the last two weeks our evening numbers have really dropped. Not sure why...but we are going to challenge some of our members to come at night. There are quite a few people that can't come in the mornings, so we are going to press on.

• As I have shared before, we are on a marathon not a sprint. I am excited to see where Christ is taking us into the future. One of my leaders reminded me of how far we have come since February. He told me to look on our website tonight of our pics. Here is a pic from February:
  

• Here is a pic from a couple of weeks ago at our baptism service:

Jesus, keep growing your church.

Goodnight people.

Time to Dance

One of my church members sent me this email and video.

I've thought long and hard about my personal participation in worship at Vintage in that I feel called to participate more from the audience. I've been inspired by the following video. Does anyone have any problem with me worshiping in this way?


see video @ www.robwilton.blogspot.com

Not at all Mike. Bring it on. Just one thing...no flags or tambourines.

Thank you Jesus - Reflections over the last month.

It has been a while since I added some personal reflections. Honestly, my life has been in a tornado since the Gustav scare. Between the hurricane, new baby, classes, church baptism/mission/and official launch...at times I have asked for Christ to take me home. I have slipped up on a lot of my personal goals like getting in shape, reading some books, and even some family priorities. It is going to be tough, but I am determined to get back in the zone. Thankfully I have survived the dive and have just started to reach the surface for some air.

When I think about the last month all I can say is "THANK YOU JESUS". His grace and strength has certainly kept me going. The following is a list of my "thank you Jesus" moments:

• Surviving Hurricane Gustav. This is the reality of living in New Orleans. My life went through so many emotions during this time. Because God is sovereign all we can do is repond to what he allows to happen in this world. I love how our church responded to this storm. It was awesome watching our church DO WORK (for all those Rob&Big fans). Be the Church...sounds like a cool concept. Please don't forget the areas that were impacted by Gustav and Ike. There are a lot of people that still need help.
• 28 Days of Prayer. Starting at the beginning of September our church united in prayer. Each day we focused on a specific prayer request, country from Operation World, and read through the One Year Bible text for the day. Honestly, there were many days that I probably would have quit if it wasn't for my time in the Word and time in prayer. I believe that this is just the beginning of a mighty prayer movement in our entire church community.
  
• 9/20 Mission Day. Our missional strategy at Vintage is three-fold. Personal, Life Group, and Corporately. Instead of filling up the calendar with missional events, we are encouraging our members to live missional each day. As they engage their world, they are called to bring in their life group to meet needs each week. And then quarterly our entire church will unite to reach our community. Corporately we will also serve together in a foreign mission field twice a year. The mission day on the 20th was amazing. We had over 50 people show up to clean yards, parks, pass out waters, prayer walk, pick up trash, clean bathrooms, and tell people about Jesus. Ben did an amazing job leading this event. Thanks to everyone who got their hands dirty for Jesus.
  
• 9/21 Baptism and Barbeque. This is what it is all about. Our gathering for worship each week is not the focus of our church. It is a celebration of the focus of our church - going and making disciples. Our baptism team (Edmund, Wendy, Mike, Tiffany, Dennis, Kaitlin, and many others) did a first class job. After a time of worship, we went outside and had a baptism celebration. Notice I said celebration. I have attended way too many baptisms services that felt like funerals. We sang, prayed, yelled, clapped, and of course baptized 7 people. It felt more like a tailgating party than a funeral. I pray that we have thousands more.

Here is a video of the Mission Day and Baptism (thx Mike and Travis):


Vintage Church Mission Day & Baptism Sunday from Travis Manint on Vimeo.

You can also check out the pics from the two days at www.vintagenola.org/photo-gallery/

• 9/24 Life Group Launch. This was a huge day for our church because we consider our LIFEgroups to be the foundation of our mission. This summer we had 3 lifegroups led by our pastors. On the 24th, we launched 13 LIFEgroups all over the city. I am superpumped to watch God use these groups to connect people to Christ all over our city. These groups of 5-15 people gather in homes and participate in learning God's Word, interaction with God in prayer, fellowship with each other, and then evangelism in the community. More info on them at www.vintagenola.org/lifegroups/.
  
• 9/28 Official Sunday Launch. Once again, we don't consider this to be the point...however, we believe that God can do an amazing work through the corporate gathering of the church and through the preaching of God's Word. Andrew and our band did an amazing job. I am excited to co-preach this fall with Page through the book of I John. Our series is called "Christology". You can subscribe to the podcast at www.vintagenola.org/podcast/. We had over 120 people join us on the day as we gathered at 10am & 6pm. Although we still have a lot of things to work out with our volunteer teams, we are certainly heading in the right direction. I am excited to see where God is going to take His church.

WOW! This has been an amazing month. THANK YOU JESUS!