Kirk Bowman's blog

Suzette and I spent last week in Scottsdale, Arizona with a group of leaders called Integrity Leadership Ministries (ILM). This get-away happens once a year and is filled with some really great high capacity people.

There’s amazing worship, golf, shopping, eating together, hanging out, superb teaching sessions. But it’s mainly built around relational connecting.

I don’t think I heard one person say how big their church was. Even though a lot of these guys pastor very large churches, there is none of that spirit to this group.

We have grown to love going to this gathering. Every year we get to reconnect with friends and make new ones. It’s a tribe we really enjoy.

“Tribes” are an interesting concept. You can’t legislate them. It’s a mysterious, organic kind of thing. I have respect for all the tribes in The Church but I know I don’t fit in all of them. Some I just learn from, some I belong to, and some I just know there is not a fit. But we all have a need for a tribal sense of belonging.

We have just had another amazing weekend at The Rock Church!

On Saturday, as part of our 99 Days of Serving this summer, over 70 people from our church showed up at Asheville Buncombe County Christian Mission’s (ABCCM) women’s facility to help upgrade some of the rooms. We had so many people we ended up spilling over into cleaning the kitchen, cutting the grass, fixing grout work and on and on – in addition to totally redoing 3 of their dorm rooms. We had a blast working together and the rooms turned out great!

They told us we were the largest group that has ever showed up to volunteer at their facility. Way to go Rockers!

On Sunday, we heard a great message by Dino Rizzo in our One Prayer series. He spoke on “Make Us Extremely Generous”. We also received an offering to help support an ambitious church planting effort through One Prayer partnership. The goal is 500 churches in China, India, Sudan and Cambodia.

We also had 21 people raise their hand to respond to Christ at the end of Sunday service.

Wow!

So, last night I take Tori with me to see Rilo Kiley at The Orange Peel. For the record, I love Rilo Kiley and think they are amazing. This is my second time to see them and they are great live! And I’m not easily impressed.

The downside was – 3 (three!) opening acts. I think I understand the philosophy behind opening acts - exposure for the artist and more entertainment bang for your dollar.

But holy cow, get to the point. Give us a few minutes of openers and then let us see who we came to see.

I don’t want to be rude but I also want to make the observation – some of these guys are not very good and it can become torturous to endure them on the way to hearing what I came to hear. I know they need exposure and experience and all that but when they are categorically less skilled than the main act, please give us a break.

This makes me think about how we do church. We used to do 45 minutes of worship and hour long messages with tons of announcements. Now both worship and message have been cut in half – not in terms of quality but in terms of time. Our announcements are on video and run during our offering. We try to give a great experience (100 best minutes) but we value people’s time and get to the point.

We still have long worship and prayer sessions (mega worship once a quarter) but people come to that because they want to. And they know what they have signed up for.

Our philosophy is – one house, many rooms. Different rooms (meetings) for different things. Get to the point of why you are there.

Today my amazing daughter, Tori, turns 20 years old.

Wow, it is so hard for me to believe that my baby girl is now 20. No longer a teenager. When people say it goes by fast they are not kidding.

Just yesterday, Suzette and I were packing all our belongings (which wasn’t much) and our just-barely-learning-to-walk little girl and moving to Asheville to start a church.

Push fast forward and now my baby has grown into a gorgeous young lady.

Tori is sweet, thoughtful, kind and talented. I am very proud of her. She will always be my baby girl.

Yesterday was our first day of One Prayer and it went over way better than I thought it would. To be honest, I was a little nervous about showing video teaching. It’s a new thing to our church and I was little apprehensive about how it would be received.

We showed my video teaching I submitted to the One Prayer website. I have never sat and watched myself like that in church. My wife even said to me “No offence, honey, but that was just as good as hearing you live”.

This really opens up possibilities for the future!

One Prayer is about more than video teaching, though.

We are asking our church to fast (at least one meal a week) and pray for our church and for all the other churches involved in One Prayer.

We are also engaging in a service project (which we already had planned with 99 days) for our community. This month - June 21 at ABCCM.

We are also receiving a church planting offering on June 22.

I love doing new things!

Def Leppard and Tim McGraw have a new song out – together. I think it’s pretty good. AND – I think it’s way cool to match a country singer with a rock band.

It seems there is more and more a merging of styles to create great music. Who would’ve ever put Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) with Allison Krauss (bluegrass)? Yet it seems to work.

One Prayer feels like this to me. I’m excited about a bunch of kingdom minded guys putting down their labels and just coming together as one to reach the world for Christ.

I know there are still tribes we all gravitate toward. Nothing wrong with that. I have my favorites as well – in music and in the church world.

But a little harmony – two or more different notes coming together to make a unique sound – is a very cool thing.

One Prayer – pour some sugar on me, in the name of love

This Sunday we begin our One Prayer series. Looking forward to this for a number of reasons.

One of my reasons for doing this is to introduce our church to video technology as a way to expand our capacity to reach people. Hundreds of churches are already utilizing video to multiply their reach capacity.

This idea will eventually take the video church/ministry experience to a whole nuther level. Holographic ministry. Think of the reach potential to previously unreachable places.

The church (well, some of the church) has always utilized technology to expand it’s reach. From the printing press (Gutenberg Bible), to radio, to TV, to internet, to podcasts - etc.

Technology opens new arenas of abundance.

Think about it.

Yesterday was an amazing day in church. Worship was awesome. Loud. Seems like a new level of engagement from our church in worshipping God. Which I love!

We had 14 people raise their hand to respond to Christ at the end of the meeting. Something amazing going on here as well. Since Easter we have had 193 people respond to Christ. Help us by praying for them to continue strong on their journey.

Really looking forward to One Prayer starting this Sunday. Love the idea of partnering with over 1,285 churches. Sharing video teaching. Receiving an offering for church planting. Praying for one another. Serving in our communities.

We have a great summer in front of us!