Breaking the Rules

Program target:

• Re-Think, 
• Re-Image, 
• Re-Connect, 
• Re-Invest, 
• Re-Group

Program Format:

Program Host:

Program Elements

• Narrator turns the page -- What's up?
• Content--God's perspective based on big picture themes/stories/metaphors from the Bible
• NewVista: What does adventure sounds like?
• Real-life stories exploring the theme
• Theme Message in music & movies
• Comments from Facebook, Twitter, & Blogger friends
• Email quotes: Insights, testimonies, and & questions.
• Share the story--Listener 2 Listener--Team growth
• Challenge to Be the Story.
• Occasional Coffee-Cup meet-ups,
• Unique Website with more info, resources, blogs, and links.
• Thematic Blog--Focus on “outside the walls” faith in action.
• Perpetual emphasis on Mystery clues embedded in the adventure. "Hang on to this.” Listen for it!
• Humor, news, craziness, contests, freebies, and more…

Program Themes 

Fresh, breaking the rules, insights based on the Big Picture of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Introducing God to the over-churched, under-churched, de-churched, and there-has-got-to-be-more-than-this-churched.

• Freedom of choice
• Fear, Frustration, and curiosity
• Zombies-Walking Dead People
• Psychopaths are everywhere
• Start-over Options
• Finding God is Crisis
• Trust me-Who are you?
• Wilderness Tours & Excursions
• We are not alone
• Breaking Free from dysfunction
• Expect the unexplainable
• Unwrapping the Inheritance
• Learning to remember
• Getting an Eye Full 
• Out of the Box Lifestyle
• Seeing the Invisible
• Invitation to Adventure
• Let’s Do Lunch
• Live forward-Understand Backwards
• Yes! to Passions, Dreams, & Wonders
• Shockproof Friendships
• Plugged in Imagination
• Solving the mystery
• Road Blocks & Stumbling Blocks 
• Expect the unexplainable
• The Fingerprints are everywhere
• Get out of the Book-Be the story

Program Need:

I have in my possession something of priceless worth. It's uniquely and perpetually mine. I can choose to save it, or share it, or change it, but no one can jerk it from my hands or rip it from my heart. It's totally and permanently mine. 

 We sat down near the front in the sanctuary, 2 hours early. It was Tuesday Evening Prayer meeting at the Brooklyn Tabernacle. 

As the pre-recorded hymns filled the nicely refurbished old theater, a steady stream of people made their way to the front. They all came with pictures in their hands. Some held envelops filled with multiple pictures. 

Each face in the pictures was a prayer request…a portrait of concern and pain. 

It was all a very moving image of love and faith and church--a demonstration of prayer for this generation and the next.  

After spreading their pictures on the steps of the platform, most lingered to pray. Many knelt with hands outstretched over the pictures, some simply stood looking up, After a few minutes most returned to their seats, but a few stayed ten minutes or so, slowly releasing the pictures, as though ceremonially giving these loved ones to God--trusting God to step-in and work a wonder.

After an hour, the six steps of the 45ft platform were covered with pictures. As believers continued to enter the room, pictures got stacked on top of pictures And by the time the worship began, thousands of pictures covered the steps--thousands of hopeful images of faith.

That night, that sanctuary was not filled with people punching an attendance ticket; they were not attending out of guilt, or social pressure, they were there expressing their faith--lifting up their souls.

The service itself was a testament to holy power. Afterwords the "Prayer Band" (volunteer prayer warriors) would take the pictures and and for the next 40 days these faces would fill their prayer list.  

The church left that night expecting miracles!

On this Tuesday, I experience faith in action and I learned something powerful about prayer, can you guess what it was? 

All this before the service began…how could that be? 

Mel was different:

He showed us how to live in the good times and the bad.

Melvin (Mel) Weldon was different. He was a unique, uncommon, out-of-the-box, adventurer. At times he was unexpected and quirky, but always encouraging.

He was a great preacher, but I don't remember a single sermon he preached. He used diagrams and charts and challenged you to think beyond the limits, but even the images fade with time. What I do remember, with delight, is a life engaged and focused on bringing out the best in everyone he met.

In a time when preachers were known for abilities to argue and debate, Mel was different. While others were winning arguments, He studied and researched and had his own opinions, but he was more interested in listening to your position than forcing you to agree with his. He invested in people and in doing so, became one of a few preachers who, in many ways, have become a generation of anonymous giants. And that was OK with Mel. He was different.

Mel was at his best at Sierra Bible Camp. Most of our "real" faith shaping times growing up happened at camp. That's where "Church People" became real people. Oh, there were classes and devotional talks, but the most powerful part of camp was being together 24-hours a day for 7-10 days. The real people showed up, and Mel had "realness" down to an art. From the first day he knew everyone's name and he found a way to make everyone think.

My brother and a group of his buddies were sitting around on old stumps, Bible's opened, researching the concept of "grace." It was new to all of us. Mel walked up, "What's happening?"

"We're reading all the verses in the Bible that talk about 'grace'," Gary responded.

Mel relied, "have you looked at this passage pointing to one in Romans 4."

Someone answered "No, it doesn't have grace in it, we have all the verses on this list that have the word grace in them; it's not on the list."

"Oh, it's in that verse, check it out, you'll see."

During those years, when people got slammed against an unexpected crisis, Mel was the one to call. When preachers needed a confidential ear, when conflicts were out of hand, when life shattered in your hands, time with Mel made the impossible endurable.

During those horrendous days after Dorene Harris' tragic murder, Mel was the minister called to preach the memorial service. Mel was different. He knew how to connect with all ages. He was in the top three of popular speakers at Bay Area Youth Rallies. He was a breath of fresh air in a time of bickering and bitterness. He paid the price...sometimes even well intentioned people can't handle it when preacher's challenge you to think outside the box. "Those questionable, unproven people like him, there must be something wrong with him and what he teaches." Fear gripped the land.

He focused on people where he found them, not where he wished they were. And, he did it by showing them the way. I believe there are aspects of the Christian faith that are lost in the words…until they are demonstrated. Some things just have to be see: love, forgiveness, and grace to name a few. While Mel was forcing us to think, he was showing us how to love the unlovable, how to forgive the underserving, and how to dispense grace without earning it. "WOW, now that's good news!"

He was different. Before we used words like "mentor" or "counselor" or "coach" to refer to leaders, and before people dared to think of the preacher as a friend, he was all of the above.

During the summer before my freshman year in college, Mel was one of the keynote speakers for a youth rally at my home church. I had closed the morning with a challenge for those teens younger than me. It was a life changing experience. During the lunch break, Mel asked if we could talk a bit, so we walked out to the back side of the parking lot. When we reached the fence separating us from the creek, Mel turned toward me, looked straight through me, put his hand on my shoulder and asked, "Ronnie, you ever thought about being a preacher?"

"Absolutely not," I relied, "they move every two years, somebody is always mad at them, and they don't have any friends."

That was that, but a seen was planted.

Almost three years later, following a horrific car accident that toss me free of a high-speed crash that killed a close friend, Mel visited my room and just as he left, he asked, "Ronnie, God has plans for you, have you thought any more about being a preacher?"

He had planted the seed and tilled the ground.

Mel was different. And he was good at it.

Thank you God for putting Mel in my path. I for one stand in honor of my mentor, my coach, my friend, Mel Weldon.

Well Done! Mel Weldon Well Done!

 

You have to work at it to miss the point of Numbers 9:15-23. 

God's people were camped in the wilderness without a map or GPS or compass. Essentially, they were lost. 

However, wherever they turned there was this cloud of smoke and at night this pillar of fire. These eye-catching visions were better than a map; they represent the presence of the invisible God. The people didn't have a clue where they were, or where they were going, but they were living in the moment, within God's holy tent city: they could see The Presence, even if they couldn't feel it.

When God moved, the cloud moved; when the cloud moved, they moved. When the cloud stopped, they camped. All they had to do was camp in His Presence.

The message of Numbers 9 that applies to our times is: It's wasn't that important that they had a clear vision of where they were going, what was important was that the I AM was with them, regardless.

I have spent the last few months wandering around among numerous options wishing I knew which way to go. I have longed for direction while forgetting the The Presence. That stops now! 

When God is ready to move, I am ready. The adventure is unknown, but the fellowship is certain.

How about you? Oh, I think the cloud is moving...