Scott Harris

We live in a culture that offers no sympathy for being tired unless you’ve built something of “significance” with your efforts.

Read that again.

In other words: you have no right to be tired for your hard work unless you’re “successful”. Whatever “successful” is.

My heart hurts for all those church planters and pastors of smaller churches who are working their butts off and can’t seem to get any validation for their weariness because, well, there doesn’t seem to be any reason they should be exhausted. I was that guy. Church planting and busting myself day-in and day-out.

And if you’re that guy/gal too. I’m praying for you!

I’m not going to waste your time, giving you advise about narrowing you focus, delegating and all the other things you’re supposed to do because you’re already doing all that to the best of your ability.

I just want you to know that even though I don’t know you personally…

I’m praying for you!

Calibrate NW is the Northwest’s premiere conference for church leaders who are committed to church planting, multi-site and multiplication. Join Mark Driscoll, Ed Stetzer, Jim Tomberlin, Eric Metcalf, Jeff Vanderstelt, and Ryan Meeks on November 15th & 16th.

The current price is $85 but this Friday, October 16th, you can register for only $69. But you might want to be one of the first because we only have room for 375. Go to our website, www.calibratenw.com to register.

So pumped to announce that Brooklake Church is planting a daughter church!

Waterland Church in Des Moines, WA.

For what’s it’s worth, I measure church success more by how we’re doing at sending, not keeping and I can’t wait for the day that the church conference circuit is filled by pastors who have sent more than they have kept!

I have a dream of being an old man, sitting on my porch overlooking Mt Rainer, praying for all the hundreds of daughter and granddaughter churches we’ve launch!

I’ll keep you posted as we develop www.WaterlandChurch.org. If you live in the South Sound area and would like to connect to a brand new movement, let me know!

I found out that the “blizzard” I blogged about in an earlier post was actually the result of what’s called the lake effect. Admittedly, I was puzzled by this unique experience. It came on suddenly and in full force. Being from the Northwest with all our beautiful mountain passes, I’m used to driving up and over and consequently through snow storms. But this place is flat. I mean pancake flat!

Lake Effect snow is the result of warmer Great Lakes water providing the moisture and a strong South wind funneling it toward land or what they call a “snow belt”.

In the church world there are Lake Effect Churches too. These are those anomalies that no one can predict and get all our attention. Their pastors become rock stars with gazillions of Twitter followers. And we attempt to replicate their success in our settings.

But the conditions have to be just right for the Lake Effect: Freezing temperatures, warmer than freezing water and a nasty horizontal wind. All of which are the result of our Creator.

I’ve got this theory: Just like the conditions of the Lake Effect, church growth is a result of the many coniditions being in alignment and spiritual conditions is just one category.

I’ll be exploring the others in future posts.

I spent almost 10 years pastoring a church that met in a High School. Every Sunday was the equivalent of moving a small house, unpacking all our equipment and then loading it back up. So when it snowed like it did this past weekend it made it really difficult to hold services. Most of the time we’d make it happen. Sometimes we’d go acoustic, not have coffee and not have children’s ministry. And other times, on the rare occasion, we’d cancel.

Now that I’m at a church with a building, it’s a whole different thing. Here’s a few thoughts:

1. Those that lead a portable church…my heart, goes out to you. Every decision you make is more complex. Sure the bills are larger for me now, but just showing up and turning the heat on is a whole lot simpler than living out of a cargo trailer.
2. People work just as hard in every church. For example, this last Sunday, after we had about a foot of snow over the night, a member showed up at 6:30 AM (without being asked) and started shoveling snow. Wow!!! That’s a guy who understands what our mission is! Thanks Charley!
3. I’m responsible to Christ for my service. Whether the place is packed out or I find myself preaching to a few diehards with 4-wheel drive, I’m called. Period. I will love those that are there, not fret over those that aren’t!
4. The coffee always tastes better when it’s freezing outside. What I mean is this: when these kinds of weekends come around, it does something special in a church family. I will always remember Ian, our worship leader, leading worship with his snowboarding boots. I’ll remember hearing Bob’s story because we turned the 8:30 AM service into a small group discussion. These are the kinds of experiences that we all look back on and say, “Remember when…?”

I could go on and on but the bottom line is this: There’s churches of every variety all full of hard working, dedicated and faithful people. If you don’t attend one, you might find this hard to believe but we do it all for you.