Anne Marie Miller

Category: Church

  • what does IT has to do with poverty?

    craig groeschel is probably one of my favorite people in the world. over the last year or so, i’ve had the honor of getting to know him as a fellow zondervan author, and while i was on staff at lifechurch.tv where he is the senior pastor.

    people always wonder if the pastors they see with influence are the same on stage as they are in real life…and i can say with confidence that craig’s heart, passion, and love for people is consistent.? craig was also was kind enough to write the foreword to mad church disease, to which i am uberly grateful.

    =====

    craig’s new book is called “it,” and he’s been making the rounds on several blogs (listed at the bottom of this post) answering our questions about “it.”

    here’s mine:

    Anne: What are some ways churches with IT can truly make a global impact on poverty?

    Craig: Thanks for the thoughtful question.

    Churches and ministries with IT can and should be making a global impact on poverty over time. Here?s why:

    Churches with IT?that special something that only God can do?reach people. When people are excited about kingdom vision, they generally become generous with their time and resources.
    Ministries that have IT tend to give IT away. And when they give, God often seems to give them more.

    We?ve found that one of the best ways to disciple people is to help them serve in missions. Once they taste the presence of Christ among the poor, they are forever changed.

    It seems that we are almost handicapped in experiencing all of God in a prosperous country. We never have to pray, ?Give us today our daily bread?? because we already have a cabinet full of bread. As our people are exposed to the way God works in the lives of people in the rest of the world, our hearts and faith tend to grow. Serving people generously with the love of Christ is like Christian cocaine?once you try it, you?re hooked.

    =====

    see what other bloggers have asked craig about “it” here:

    Swerve (Craig Groeschel & Bobby Gruenewald)
    Scott Hodge
    The Catalyst Blog and On the Journey (Brad Lomenick)
    Velocity (Dave Ferguson)
    Zondervan blog
    Monday Morning Insight (Todd Rhoades)
    Innovative Ministry Leader (Sean Lewis)
    Tony Morgan Live
    Leading Smart (Tim Stevens)

    =====

    you can buy IT here!

  • OCDism and how God Speaks through Cheetos

    so yesterday after the services at cross point were over, i visited emmaus church in nashville. when the catalyst road trip guys were here a few weeks ago, they introduced me to michael, emmaus’ pastor.

    backing up a little, i’m a teenie bit OCD. the symmetrical, every-detail-matters kind of OCD. on sunday mornings, it is a passion of mine to make sure all the song lyrics have no typos, that everything is perfectly aligned, and that there is nothing funky on stage that might interfere with video. (and this really isn’t part of my job description…it’s just who i am!) :)

    okay, now, back to emmaus. it’s a small community of twenty-ish people. it’s diverse. it meets in a rented garage in a very potentially dangerous part of nashville. they have made it look amazing and warm and welcoming. like really, when you walk it, your mind explodes a little bit because of the vibe of the space and the welcoming spirit.

    as i sat down during the worship set, i noticed a half-empty bag of cheetos leaning against an amp. and then i noticed that my heart didn’t do that little “fix it” pitter-patter. instead, it embraced it.

    we do our best to make our environments nice and clean and by all means, we should keep doing it. emmaus was certainly clean and welcoming.

    however, i know that in the past (AKA all the time) i know i can try and make an environment perfect. but you know what? i wonder why.

    was i distracted by this bag of cheetos? did the holy spirit stop moving in my heart when i saw the bag? not at all. if anything, it made me realize how completely unimportant it is to try and attain perfection within our worship environments.

    life is not perfect. people are not perfect. and god forbid, the church is not perfect.

    maybe people will feel more comfortable taking off their masks if we don’t portray that we have everything together ourselves. as shane hipps has said, the medium is the message.

    the medium of a cheetos bag next to an amp during worship said “real people here” to me.

    what does your medium say about you?

  • Leaderman or Servant Leader?

    Stole this off Brant Hansen’s blog.

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Wants a platform on which to say something

    Servant Leader: Has something to say

    ———–

    LeaderMan: You almost feel you know his family, because he’s your Leader

    Servant Leader: You allow him to influence you, because you know his family

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Wants you to know he’s a Leader

    Servant Leader: You’re not sure he knows he’s a leader

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Loves the idea of the Gospel, and the idea of The Church

    Servant Leader: Loves God and the actual individual people God brings across his path

    ———–

    LeaderMan: A great speaker, but self-described as, “Not really a people person.”

    Servant Leader: Makes himself a people person

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Helps you find where God is leading you in his organization

    Servant Leader: Helps you find where God is leading you

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Gets together with you to talk about his vision

    Servant Leader: Just gets together with you

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Resents “sheep stealing”

    Servant Leader: Doesn’t get the “stealing” part, since he doesn’t own anyone to begin with

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Wants the right people on the bus

    Servant Leader: Wants to find the right bus for you, and sit next to you on it

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Shows you a flow chart

    Servant Leader: Shows you his whole heart

    ———–

    LeaderMan: A visionary who knows what the future looks like

    Servant Leader: Knows what your kitchen looks like

    ———–

    LeaderMan: If it’s worth doing, it worth doing with excellence

    Servant Leader: Not exactly sure how to even calculate “worth doing”

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Talks about confronting one another in love

    Servant Leader: Actually confronts you in love

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Impressed by success and successful people

    Servant Leader: Impressed by faithfulness

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Invests time in you, if you are “key people”

    Servant Leader: Wastes time with you

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Reveals sins of his past

    Servant Leader: Reveals sins of his present

    ———-

    LeaderMan: Gives you things to do

    Servant Leader: Gives you freedom

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Leads because of official position

    Servant Leader: Leads in spite of position

    ———–

    LeaderMan: Deep down, threatened by other Leaders

    Servant Leader: Has nothing to lose

    ===

  • churchy wordisms that confuse me

    why do christians say “we love people where they are?”

    think about it….

    where are they…compared to where we think we are? and why do we make it sound like such a feat of accomplishment?

    i’ve had too much caffeine today. please excuse me.

  • church staff + golf cart + police + DUI = yesterday afternoon

    something i love about working on staff at cross point is the amazing amounts of fun we get to have. for instance, taking our parking lot shuttle/golf cart a mile down the road to get ice cream with a bunch of my coworkers.

    what you are about to see unfold may take you by surprise. especially if your church doesn’t like to have fun. in the video you’ll meet matt (creative arts director), jenni (executive director), miranda (creative arts coordinator), ashley (office manager/first impressions), chad (dickson campus pastor) and jarrod (music director).

    i should also note that even though a DUI was mentioned in the making of this film, the only influence we were under was the influence of sugar. just to clarify.

    enjoy! :)


  • Fifty? Schmifty. Let’s blow this sucker away!

    I got an email from my buddy Brad at Catalyst. The Catalyst Vanagon is on a road trip and drove through the Baton Rouge area shortly after Hurricane Gustav ripped right through. Since it was not a hurricane of “Katrina” proportion, the media let it die pretty fast.

    Healing Place Church, led by Pastor Dino Rizzo, is a great church in that area. I’ve known of the amazing stuff HPC has been doing locally for the last several years. LV Hanson (who I had the honor of meeting a couple months ago) met up with Dino to see how the blogging community can help.

    Here is what they need:

    “As of Friday, Sept. 5th, power is expected to be out in parts of southern Louisiana for 4-6 weeks; homes are destroyed, and many people in “the bayou” have yet to be reached. ?They need help! ?We asked Dino what they need and how the Catalyst audience might be able to help.”

    His answer was simple – please send us blue tarps!?

    Will you send one (1) blue tarp to Healing Place Church as way of helping the recovery efforts from Hurricane Gustav? ?Our goal is 50 Blue Tarps by Friday, September 12th.?

    You guys have pulled together and sent over 100 mosquito nets to malaria ravaged countries. 120 books to pastors in the Dominican Republic. You have fed 80 families for an entire month through the Compassion Global Food Crisis.

    Another opportunity to be love in a very tangible and needed way is here!

    To send a blue tarp, order one AT THIS LINK and have it shipped to:

    ONE (1) BLUE TARP
    Healing Place Church
    19202 Highland Road
    Baton Rouge, LA 70809
    225.753.2273

    When you have purchased the tarp, please leave a comment (anonymously if you wish) so that they can measure and prepare for how many they will be receiving.

    I realize the tarps are a little expensive so if you’d like to chip in toward the purchase of a tarp, please send me a PayPal ([email protected]) with the amount you would like to contribute and I will purchase as many as I can on 9/11 (and send everyone who sent PayPal a receipt for accountability).

    Thank you guys SO MUCH. I can’t tell you what an awesome example you have set to the blogosphere. BlogHer (a HUGE estrogen filled website) even picked up on what you guys have done and featured this interview on their HOME PAGE yesterday. WAY TO LEAD THE WAY!!! Let’s keep it moving!

    Here is a video from Dino:


    Hurricane Torn Baton Rouge Needs Our Help!!! from Catalyst on Vimeo.

    ***PLEASE REPOST THIS ON YOUR BLOG!!!***

  • the bench monster

    check out what my friend jeff and some of his cohorts did in his east atlanta neighborhood.? so cool.?? three minutes. that’s all.

    be love.

  • what time do you wake up?

    i am not naturally a morning person, but when i wake up, i’m up and alert (typically).? sometimes i use sleep aids like lunesta or in really bad seasons, clonazepam, to help me sleep.

    with the lunesta, i know i will wake up exactly 7 hours after i took the pill.

    last night i took a lunesta at 9:10 pm, knowing i needed to be awake by 4:30 am in order to be out at our dickson campus by 8 am.? since it had been a while since i’d had a lunesta, i set two alarms.? however, 4:10 rolled around and i’ve been wide awake for the last twenty minutes.

    since a lot of you are church staff members or volunteers, i was wondering…what time do you wake up on sunday to do your church thang?

  • my friend kristi

    i had been out of church for a good part of five years, involved in many things i shouldn’t have been involved in. my best friend and i had just moved from dallas to kansas city and my other friend’s band was playing at a church so we decided to go.

    Me and Kristisomething happened in that church. i thought it was a panic attack but it ended up being god blowing my face off in a very clear way, calling me back. i hid in the back of the room behind a partition, trying to keep my heart rate under 250 and prevent myself from hyperventilating.

    a very spunky girl with bright red hair came up and out of nowhere, asked if she could pray for me. just what i needed. another religious crazy person. at 21, i had vowed to keep anyone religious far from my heart. however, i obliged. she prayed for things nobody would have known about, including my future involvement in ministry.

    over the course of a few months, she suckered me into volunteering in that church’s youth ministry. a year later, i was hired on full time, and now, almost five years after that church-induced panic attack, i’ve been in full time vocational ministry.

    in that time, she married to the love of her life and moved south africa, where she and her husband feed babies and buy food and love the least and the dying.

    she lives and breathes in life and death all the time, and she had a post today i thought everyone should read.

    go say hi to my friend kristi. give her a hug. she is in the trenches and more faithful to being obedient than probably anyone else i have ever met.

    visit kristi’s blog here.