Bill Berger.org

Hey, All Saints!

I am late in getting this out, I apologize. I do have a few things to share with you:

#1  Easter Sunday was incredible on many levels. It was good seeing many people I have never met before. It was fun having a house full of people! I thoroughly enjoyed the music, Jimmy and Rachel Nichols did such a great job. I am so proud of All Saint'ers, I noticed how every person was treated as a wonderful and precious gift from God and I am quite sure Jesus was made even more popular. 

#2 I am so proud of all the incredible volunteers at All Saints! We had so many people step up to serve every person that was in attendance. I am grateful for the incredible passion and attitude of our entire team. Thank you all so much!

#3 An update from our "one day's wage to feed the world" campaign. We are currently at $9808, our goal is $10k. I am so proud of our church, this is what makes a church "famous." They will know we follow Jesus by our love...in serving and giving. Thank you, All Saints!

#4 Let me introduce Warren Kinser, our most recent staff hire. Warren is coming on to be our associate pastor. He will over see our assimilation system and help with organizational management. Warren is a great guy who is very gifted. We are very fortunate to have him on board. Take some time to "Welcome Warren" this Sunday.

#5 This Sunday we will continue our look into I Corinthians 15. We are going to look at the apostle Paul and his amazing transformation. We can learn alot from Paul and what it means to become a Christ follower, also get some glimpses into what that might look like for you and me and our friends. I am really excited about teaching this Sunday.

#6 Don't forget to download the All Saints Church APP. At last check we had 522 launches and 416 downloads. The team from subsplash has spoiled us rotten. You can get it here

#7 I am so grateful and honored to pastor at All Saints Church. I truly believe we have what it takes to show Seattle how much Jesus loves this city. Let's pray, serve and give extravagantly to do whatever it takes to demonstrate the abundant life of Jesus. Our goal isn't to make All Saints better, our goal is to make Seattle better. Let's get to work!

See you Sunday!

Hey, All Saints!

I am excited to share a few things with you today:

#1 - I appreciate and love All Saints Church! I appreciate how patient you all are as we make necessary and needed changes. I love you all for jumping in and believing that the work of Jesus in Seattle is important. The number of you volunteering is humbling. The many people who are investing by giving is at an all time high. It is really exciting to be a part of this with you!

#2 - The response to our "Surprised by Grace" series has been incredible. Many of you have responded that you are done believing the lie that God doesn't care. I have been praying for all of you to feel free to be who God has designed you to be, and to have the confidence to know that Jesus has your back! A few things to remember:

•     "The lie" tells us that God doesn't care about us.
•     Jesus obliterated that lie by searching for us and ultimately dying for us.
•     A reminder: Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so...

From last Sunday: (Go here to have a listen to the podcast)

•     We tend to look for meaning and mission in inadequate things.
•     When your mission is anything other than God, it will come up way short and not be able     to handle the rigors of reality.
•     St. Augustine: "God, my heart is restless until it rests in you."
•     When we seek Jesus first, our mission is in focus, then all the other things will make sense.

#3 - Easter gatherings are only 3 weeks away! We are so excited to celebrate the risen Jesus. You will find invitations in your handout this Sunday, please take a bunch of them and hand them out to your friends and family. We are praying that we have many doubters and seekers in attendance. It is our hope to be a place of joy and hope for our city. There are 606, 660 people in the city of Seattle, we are asking God for 1% or appx. 6,000 people to be within reach of All Saints. It is going to take prayer and time to reach that 1%, Easter is a great way to make a dent in that number. Who are you inviting?

#4 - We have about 2k toward our goal of 10k for the One Day to Feed the World campaign. Please pray and ask some friends to give toward this incredible opportunity to feed children around the world. More info is here.

#5 - Please be praying for the many churches in our area that proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ in our area. We need to pray for pastors and leaders in those churches, it is important that we are about unity. We are not in competition with other churches, rather we are in support of them. Please pray for our brothers and sisters at Bethany Presbyterian, Queen Anne Prebyterian, Queen Anne Baptist, Eastlake Community Church, Bethany Community Church, Mars Hill Church, Calvary Christian Assembly...just to name a few.

#6 - Finally, pray for Seattle. What an amazing city! We have such an opportunity to serve and love the people here. Let's make Seattle great, let's serve and pray for every one of the 606, 660 people that live here!

See you Sunday!

Still Learning

I am re-reading Practicing Greatness by Reggie McNeal (5th time through). This book has had a profound impact on my leadership life, I am taking the All Saints Staff through the book in the fall. We are all learning what it means to pursue the honor of leading.

Reggie gives some great advice on staying mentally vibrant:

Adequate sleep

Proper diet

Adequate exercise

Moderate use of alcohol, caffeine, nicotine

Daily doses of positive human contact

Mental recreation

Muse time

How are you at organising your mental life?

 

Oh, the Potential!

I am getting old enough to realize that every person I meet has God given potential that has been untapped. I get so excited when it is realized and then to watch these talented men and women flourish upon realizing what God has called/equipped them to do.

I remember a story about Martin Luther when he would introduce himself to a new class of students. He would begin the class by bowing in honor before he spoke. On one occasion a student questioned him, "Luther, why are you bowing to us, shouldn't we bow to you?" Luther responded, "I am bowing to the potential that is in you that will one day be teaching me."

I meet men and women everyday who have untapped potential to change the world around them. I so desire to learn from them and be a part of the discoveries they make as they learn how God has gifted them to help others flourish.

Jesus set the example, "as the Father has sent me, so I send you." What an awesome privilege to be sent into the world with a purpose and a mission. This is a very satisfying way to live. So, look for potential in the people around you, "bow" to them and be part of the process that ignites a passion in them to go into all the world. You will learn so much in the process.

Progress.

I am in the middle of week 4 of my training. I am losing weight, don't know how much yet but the weigh in will be at the end of this week. I ramped up my prayer time and study time and am excited to see the results of that!

I am enjoying a great mid week! Today is a perfect day for a cup o' tea and a new book to read.

Hopefully, I will blog something a bit more interesting than this later today. Ahem.

Retreating

Getting away gives such incredible focus. It's amazing how bogged down we can get with our lives. Not that family and friends do that, but the monotony of the day to day really interferes with creativity.

I am grateful for this time as I am able to reevaluate how I live my life and how I lead All Saints. God is always gracious and the time spent is always productive. 

I am focusing on vision and strategy of All Saints; planting churches and seeding communities of faith all over Seattle and the world. I want to be better at leadership development and help our church in spiritual formation.  It also give me a chance to pray without "noise" and other distractions. It gives me insight into becoming a better man for my darling wife and children.

Thank you Jesus for this time.

Clubber Lang and being a leader

Since I periodically suffer from insomnia, I have to have mindless white noise on while I read.  The mindless white noise tonight is Rocky III. It's the story of Rocky being trained by his one time nemesis, Apollo Creed. Apollo helps Rock change his fight philosophy to be quicker and speedier, he learns to quit being a punching bag that tries to overwhelm his opponent with determination and will. The challenger this time is the fierce Clubber Lang who has raw power and annihilates Rocky the first time they meet.  Well, Rocky learns his lesson and uses his new skills, in addition to his determination and will to KO Clubber at the end. Everything is right again as Rocky regains his belt and becomes the champion of the world.

It has me thinking about being a leader. There are skills that you start with, but those skills have to be refined and new skills must be learned. Like Rocky, it takes a Clubber Lang to step in front of you for you to see what it is you need to work on and possibly change. That can be painful, sometimes Clubber is too much for you the first time around. But like Rocky, you must go back to the old, sweaty gym and and acquire the skills to beat Clubber next time you face him.

Some of the skills I have had to learn in the last few months:

Resolve  - see things through to the end, don't leave them undone. Be pinpoint in your communication to staff and other leaders. Follow up to see projects and assignments through.

Self Management - know thy self. Know what things exhaust you and what things energize you. Do the things that give you energy and delegate the things that exhaust you. I have learned that administration is something that exhausts me, thankfully we have a staff person that has taken these responsibilities and have quickly discovered how much happier everyone is without me struggling through something I am not very good at.

Spiritual formation - journaling, prayer and Bible study are what keep me razor focused on Jesus and helps me see what I am capable of. The more I feed that part of my self the more I am able to serve my family and serve the church in ways that I can't do without relying on the power of the Holy Spirit.

I am constantly stepping into the ring, and once Clubber Lang goes down, Ivan Drago steps in and it's time to acquire and learn new skills. As leaders, we have to be constantly in training and be life long learners, these are necessary characteristics to lead with.

Being a Leader...has it's moments.

"if you want to be great, you must serve. If you want to be first among equals you must be last. If you want to be strong, you must become weak. If you want to live, you must first die. If you want to have much you must learn to live with nothing. If you want to be loved you must be willing to risk that love for their own good. You must be willing to die for those you love. If you want to use power for good you must first learn to be powerless. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."

That is a paraphrase of Jesus' words by a friend of mine, Ron Kuest. We had Ron come to our staff meeting today and speak on being a leader. It was excellent. He spoke on being courageous, and using influence to serve and empower people. I learned a lot and am learning a lot about what it means to lead and love people.

Like anything in life, you don't know if it works until you apply it and try it.  After leading All Saints for 6+ years I would like to think that I am beginning to figure some of this out. Sometimes, I wonder. I am learning to appreciate people that are different than me, in style, personality and passion. That is hard for me, not that I think people have to be like me, but that they look at a situation and solve the problem differently.

The one thing that is most frustrating for me is when people don't make an effort to understand or be understood. That makes me grind my teeth.  I want to understand where people are coming from and understand the process they used to come to a conclusion on any given situation.  Being a leader that serves is all about empowering people, an aspect of that is appreciating their thinking processes.  I am still working out that kind of serving :)

Vision quest

J.Oswald Sanders wrote a powerful book called, Spiritual Leadership, it is a must read for anyone. I have read it at least 8 times and I am currently reading it again and going through it with a dude in my church. The book is written to deepen the commitment and spiritual life of those who are in positions of influence. That is most of us.  In the chapter on essential qualities, he discusses the need for vision and its power. Sanders writes,

        "The true leader does not play it safe but is willing to take calculated risks."

Its being mindful of where you have come from and humble enough to realize that you still have plenty to learn.  That is the tension that you must manage. Its being willing to venture out with fresh steps of faith realizing that there is a vast unknown in front of you. You can take the steps because of wisdom and experience, and you can venture into the unknown because of vision.

       Only vision makes a visionary. Only wisdom make a wiseacre.
       The combination of both is  irresistible.
        A vision without a task makes a visionary. A task without a vision is drudgery.
       A vision with a task makes a missionary!

We all rally around people with vision, its contagious.  Are you up for the risks? Are you ok with the journey into the unknown? I believe that God seems to show up in those moments, its in the unknown places that he speaks to us encouraging us to keep moving forward. God loves it when we risk it all for him.  Try it.

A good resource

Seth Godin is a genius when it comes to leadership and management. He has an ebook that is free, it is something to checkout. You can get it here.