Mike Edmisten

Attention ACCers! Don’t forget about our churchwide cookout and Easter Egg hunt this Sunday. We’ll get things rolling right after our worship service concludes. Bring some lawn chairs and your appetite. It’s gonna be a great time, rain or shine!

I know this isn’t a sports blog, but I hope you’ll indulge me since Monday is Opening Day. Lots of people are talking about how good, or mediocre, or bad the Reds will be this year. Seems like everyone, even the experts, has a different opinion of how the Redlegs will fare this season.

Lonnie Wheeler is one of my favorite columnists when it comes to the Reds. A recent article from Lonnie is the most sensible, balanced take on the direction of the Reds organization that I’ve read in a long time. If you’re a Reds fan, you’ll want to check this out.

In Krivsky We Trust.

Pastors are targets for criticism. I can whine and bemoan this fact, or I can just accept it. I’m not going to change it, so I might as well accept it.

While you may not be a pastor, you do get criticized. Everyone does. How do you deal with it? Honestly, I go through seasons. Seasons where I deal with it well, and seasons where I don’t handle it well at all. (I would like to experience a third season: a season without criticism!) I ran across this quote today and it helped me gain a little more perspective on the whole thing.

“Don’t let an arrow pierce your heart until it has first passed through the filter of Scripture.” (Erwin McManus)

If someone’s criticism passes through the filter of Scripture, I need to thank God for it. It’s something that I need to hear and heed. It actually is constructive criticism.

However, if the criticism is not based on Scripture or a Scriptural principle, I need to dismiss it.

If we all followed this simple principle, we’d play a lot more offense for God and a lot less defense for ourselves. We would be proactive for His purposes instead of reactive to other’s criticism.

Had an opportunity to attend an event at Cincinnati Christian University last night. The event featured J.R. Mahon of XXXchurch. I’m a believer in the ministry of XXXchurch. (Just take a look at the shirt I’m wearing at the top of this page.) Their purpose is to engage people in an honest discussion about the dangers of pornography. Porn has become so normalized in our culture that families (dad, mom, and kids) are attending porn conventions together. And, by and large, the church has been…well…silent. This is why I love XXXchurch. They refuse to keep quiet on this issue. They are out on the front lines telling the truth about porn and extending the healing grace of Jesus to people who have been wounded by these sexual counterfeits.

Here are a few highlights that I took away from J.R.’s talk last night.

-The porn industry takes in $55 billion worldwide each year. It takes in $12 billion annually in the U.S. alone. For perspective, $12 billion is more than the revenue generated by the NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball combined. More perspective: the porn industry’s annual income in the U.S. is twice the combined annual revenue of NBC, CBS, and ABC.

-The largest demographic of porn consumers is boys ages 12-17 years old. (This is why I shake my head when parents shy away from engaging their children on this issue.)

-Two of the fastest growing demographics of porn consumers:
1. Seniors (retirement + internet access = a spike in porn consumption)
2. Women (it’s not just a “guy thing” anymore)

-There are major porn conventions in L.A., Las Vegas, and Miami…but that’s just the beginning. The goal is to have an annual porn convention in every major market in this country.

-Accountability is key. If we hope to live with purity, we’ve got to be authentic. If someone isn’t consistently asking you hard questions, you are primed to fall into impurity.

-Often, the church has chosen to cast stones instead of extending grace. Case in point…J.R. stopped at a gas station on his way to Cincinnati. He was driving the “porn cruiser,” which is XXXchurch’s SUV that is decked out in bright colors and XXXchurch slogans. There was a lady at the gas station who started yelling and condemning him because of his vehicle. She likely has no idea about what their ministry does. She just saw the word “porn” and started hurling insults.

It was an awesome night last night. It reminded me of just how dangerous and addictive pornography really is. It reminded me that I’ve got to keep an open line of communication with my wife, my accountability partner, and other people in my life. And it reminded me that the church has to step it up when it comes to the issue of pornography. It is killing people inside and outside of our churches. The church has got to reclaim it’s position as the “amazing grace place.” When grace is available, healing and restoration can happen.

Here’s the verse that’s on my mind the day after the XXXchurch session:

How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. (Psalm 119:9)

I drove by a piece of undeveloped land that had an interesting sign. The sign said, “For Sale: Build to Suit.” As long as you have the money, you can develop and build however you like on this piece of land. You can design it so it is tailor-made to suit you.

Build to Suit is an intriguing concept in building up land. It’s a devastating concept in building a church. When we cease to view the church as the Body of Christ and we start to view it as an organization, it’s very easy to pursue a Build to Suit mentality. When we lose sight of our mission to worship God, we begin to worship self. When we fail to remember that our purpose is to seek and save the lost, personal preference becomes the order of the day.

The harsh reality is that the church doesn’t exist to please you. Nor does it exist to please me. Advancing agendas or preaching preferences just isn’t what we’re all about. This is what makes leadership in the church difficult at times. A leader is always upsetting somebody’s apple cart. Whenever a decision is made to go THIS way, you can rest assured that somebody is convinced that we should go THAT way. But if the church operated on a Build to Suit mentality, the end result is that we go NO way.

My servant-hero this week is Joe Turner. Joe is the leader of our Building & Grounds Ministry. This is a busy, and often thankless ministry. With our aging facility, this ministry becomes more critical and more demanding every day.

Most every week, you can find Joe working around our church campus. This week is no exception. Joe is working on our baptistry heater, along with doing the groundwork for some other big projects. And this is just the stuff that I know about. Joe usually works incognito, which is the mark of a true servant.

Thanks for all you do, Joe! You’re this week’s servant-hero at ACC.

Had a great weekend at church. Jason Miller did an amazing job of taking us deeper in our understanding of worship. His sessions and messages sparked great discussion and reignited our passion for worship. I’m so thankful that Jason and his wife, Lisa, made the trek from Minnesota to share their hearts with us.

We’ll post the audio of all of Jason’s sessions on our website soon. I’ll let you know when they’re up.

I had never met Jason prior to this weekend, but I felt an incredible commonality with him. I not only gained a more meaningful perspective on worship this weekend…I also made a new friend. Really the only problem with this weekend was that Jason and I didn’t have a chance to go fishing. Next time, buddy. Next time.

Gotta give serious props to my high school alma mater. The Georgetown G-Men won the Division IV boys state basketball title on Saturday. A perfect 28-0 season. First state title in school history. Go mighty G-Men!

Really looking forward to our Worship Weekend this Saturday and Sunday. Oftentimes our view of worship is microscopically small. I’m looking forward a little expansion of understanding regarding worship this weekend. So thankful that Jason Miller, worship pastor of Harmony Church in Lakeville, MN, is coming to facilitate the entire weekend.

Remember that we’ve rescheduled APEX to coincide with our Worship Weekend. APEX will be a powerful way to wrap things up on Saturday. Doors open at 5:40 pm.

Our Worship Weekend is totally free and is wide open for anyone and everyone to attend. Worship is every believer’s purpose and every believer’s privilege.

Can’t come for the whole weekend? Come when you can. Check out the schedule so you know all the what’s and when’s for the weekend.

I’ve been trying to do something this week that I don’t do often enough: look at the big picture. Recently I have allowed myself to get bogged down on the details of church and ministry. And something inevitably happens when I do that…I get frustrated. So this week, I decided to fly at 30,000 feet and look down.

When you’re on the ground, you see the tree. When you’re flying high, you see the forest. When I’m flying at 30,000 feet and look down at our church’s ministry, things look a lot different. And the view is awesome! We’re in an incredible season of blessing in our church family. We just have to make sure that we keep seeking God, working hard, casting vision, and dreaming big. As Charles Stanley says, “When the church gets off mission, God gets uninterested.”

Taking a flight over our ministry this week has convinced of one thing: God is really interested in ACC!