Description
A GOD-MADE DECADE
FEBRUARY 19, 2000
ED YOUNG
If you know me pretty well, you realize right up front that I am not the handyman type. I am not the kind of guy that you will see perusing the aisles of Home Depot or watching “This Old House.” You are more likely to see me at Bass Pro Shop looking around or watching “Fly-Fishing the World.”
However, several days ago, I stepped out of my comfort zone into my backyard. If you have seen my backyard, you will know what I am talking about. I decided to build a path. We had some pavestone left over from a project, and I picked up those heavy pavestones and tried to place and space them strategically so people could walk on the stones. After I finished, I tested this whole path thing and had to tweak it a little bit. It kind of fired me up. I felt good. I felt like I had accomplished something.
While I was doing that, I began to think about stones and steps and paths and all that. I thought about Fellowship, because over the last ten years, God has placed and spaced strategically the steps of Fellowship. And we have stepped in sync with Him. Psalm 37:23, “The steps of a man are established by the Lord and he delights in His way. When he falls he shall not be hurled headlong because the Lord is the one who holds his hand.”
We serve an awesome God, a path-paving God. Just take a step and think of what the Lord has done over the last several years. Thousands upon thousands of men and women anchored into corporate worship. Many others involved in small group bible studies, connection classes. People hooked into age-appropriate teaching for children, students, singles.
When I was trying to come up with a title for this talk, I was thinking about all this stuff: 20-20 vision, or this or that, and then it hit me. God has done it all; it has been about a decade, so why not “A God-Made Decade.” He has set the path for our church and He is delighted to see us step in sync with Him. And I truly believe, ladies and gentlemen, if we could see the steps that God has for this church over the next decade, we wouldn’t believe it. If you had told me and the small group of people who began Fellowship years ago that it would turn out like this, that we would look like this, have this kind of style, we would have asked, “What have you been drinking? What have you been smoking? Are you kidding me?” Yet, as we look back, it has been a God-made decade.
I want us to scroll back a little bit in our past because I want to share with you what God has done through the life of our church. A small band of believers from First Baptist Church, Irving, had the vision to move north and began a little church in an office complex.
At that time they were kind enough to ask a 28-year-old kid to become their founding pastor. This little church put together a pastoral search team, and I want to show you this pastoral search team. It might be tough for you to make out some of the individuals. That is yours truly in the gray suit. To my left and your right is Lisa. In the bluish dress is our chief financial officer, Doris Scoggins, who at that time was in the corporate world. And to Doris’ left and your right with the unique hairstyle, which he has changed by now, is Pastor Owen Goff. That is the pastor search team.
This next shot is a picture of Lisa and I and LeeBeth taken on one of the first days we were here at Fellowship. I was 28. Lisa was 28 and, I believe, LeeBeth was three years of age. It is going to get really messy now because we have drudged up some old footage. I am talking about some footage that will make you laugh. Don’t laugh too much at the hairstyles.
[Video]
Ed Young: This is the exact spot where I preached my first sermon and I talked about Samson. I called it “The Biblical Body Builder.” We were so excited because we had a large group, the high attendance for our church at that time. It was amazing. I could look out and make eye contact with every person, hear every cough, watch every gesture. But I knew that God was doing something special.
Doris Scoggins: The people just continued to come over the months. We filled the worship center. When our guests and new people were coming in, we asked our members to move into the hallway. We would be three deep. You couldn’t hear out there or see, and so we knew something had to be done.
Ed Young: Because of the explosive growth of our church, there was no place for us to go. In fact, we were turning people away at almost every service. God, though, in His sovereignty, I believe, had the Irving Arts Center built just for the Fellowship of Las Colinas. Our church was able to negotiate a deal with the Arts Center in order for us to lease this space on Sunday mornings. We began with one service in the Arts Center. We thought one service would hold us for awhile. But God had other plans. We then moved to two services and then finally we moved to three Sunday morning services due to the masses of people coming to our church from across the Metroplex.
[End of video]
Obviously God began to bless Fellowship in a mighty way from the get go. Our style sort of developed. As we began to do things—biblical things, creative things—we received some national attention. “Good Morning America” invaded the Fellowship of Las Colinas at that time and did this little piece. I want you to watch this.
[Video]
Lisa McCree: Good morning. I am Lisa McCree of ABC News. In a few moments, we will take a look at a church where a very unorthodox minister is breaking the rules and traditions and packing in the parishioners. Songs, skits, TV parodies, are the medium for Ed Young’s religious messages.
Ed Young: I believe the purposes of the church are set forth in the Bible, and they are the non-negotiables, but we can choose the methodology.
Commentator: And one visitor to the church while we were taping that story is someone you may recognize. He is the Rev. George Exoo who has been a guest on this program before. He reviews churches and church services for a Pittsburgh radio station, and we sent him to Dallas to cast a critical eye on those services. Rev. George Exoo joins us this morning. Well, let’s get right to your review. How did you rate that service that we saw?
Rev. George Exoo: It is five stars. Five crosses, maybe, I should say. I thought this was a fantastic service. This man is doing everything right. From the minute you pull in the parking lot and are greeted by people who direct you where to park and say good morning to you. One hundred and twenty-four people are trained to be greeters in that parking lot. From the moment you walk into the auditorium and see video clips and live drama and upbeat, wonderful music and an enthusiastic sermon that really addressed, in this case, a very real, human condition—how to build your body and how to keep it in good shape.
Commentator: So he was talking to people about the things that matter to them.
Rev. George Exoo: The things that most matter to them in their lives. He is really reaching the target audience that he wants to reach with a very important message that helps them stay enthusiastic about life.
[End of Video]
They did a nice piece on us for Good Morning America. Obviously, I would take issue with Dr. Exoo on some things, but anyway….
We began to look for some land. Our church was brand new and we thought that 30 to 40 acres would be just enough land for our church. The problem was, land was out of sight. We couldn’t touch it financially. I happened to have lunch with a man who is a mentor of mine who has become a good friend, Bill Hybels. He pastors Willowcreek Community Church in So. Barrington, IL. Bill looked at me, talked to me about the growth of our church, and said, “Ed, you need to go for triple digits, go for at least 100 acres.” I though, “Wow what does this guy want us to build, a golf course? One hundred acres?” I said, “Bill, how in the world are we going to find 100 acres in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area? Our church is small, we are only several years old.” He said, “Go for it. Try it. I feel maybe a leading. It could be for you.” Well, God used his voice box in a mighty way.
We began to pray about land. We assembled a land team and, sure enough, they found a tract of land being offered by the Resolution Trust Corporation—159.2 acres right in the heart of the Metroplex. There was a problem. The dirt cost $2.5 million. Problem two, we didn’t have the money. We went before the church, and within six weeks, we raised $625,000 to put down this tract of land. Now we owed $1.875 million for the tract of land. Keep that number in your frontal lobe. There is a slide here of one of our trustees, Michael Wilkins, signing for the land along with chief financial officer, Doris Scoggins. That was a great day.
We were so excited, we decided to have a baptism/picnic thing on our brand new property. And let me show you what happened.
[Video]
(Shot of Ed Young baptizing a Fellowship member in a portable baptismal.)
Ed Young: I see a family life center. I see a worship center. I see children. I see so many wonderful things and we can make it happen.
[End of video]
A little over a year later, without a sign on the property, we sold 22 of the 159.2 acres for $1.875 million. Thus, this start-up church suddenly owns about 137 or 140 acres free and clear. Then Grapevine Mills Mall announces that they are coming in. Then Bass Pro Shop, which is definitely a God-thing, announces that they are coming in.
We started construction.
[Video]
Ed Young: We will join together and break ground. We will have our Build The Vision team followed by our staff help. Then it is barbecue time. Let’s dig it.
[End of Video]
At this time we were still in the beautiful Arts Center holding four services, packed to the gills. We were turning away hundreds of people every weekend. They just could not get in. We waved. Come back earlier next weekend. We knew we were about 13 to 14 months away from moving into our new house, so we decided to move the entire church across the street to MacArthur High School.
Now that was a big step, a step that we put off for years. It took us a total of 22 hours a weekend to set up and tear down an entire church that we would build inside the confines of the high school every single weekend. We were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to movers just to do this along with using hundreds of volunteers to make this happen. The sound was not as good. The sight lines weren’t as good, yet God, again, was all over this; and we jumped and exploded and continued to grow. Let’s look at old MacArthur High School for a second. This might bring back fond memories to a lot of you folks who helped set up and tear down. It happened every weekend.
[Video]
(Showing move in and out, and a small portion of a service in the MacArthur High School)
[End of Video]
For eight long years we were in rented facilities, setting up and tearing down in one way or another…until that day. I am talking about the day of all days in this God-made decade—April 5. On April 5th, we moved from our rented facilities to this brand new building. It was like we left Egypt and entered into the Promised Land. We wanted to have a defining moment time, so we decided to meet in our cars at the MacArthur High School parking lot and do a caravan of cars from MacArthur in Irving—about 13 miles—to this beautiful setting in Grapevine. So we did, and we called it the “Caravan of Cars.” Let me show you this video.
[Video]
Voice-over: I remember showing up, and I was all choked up just seeing the response and thinking about all the sacrifice and the work and the love and the things that God had done over the years to bring this to fruition. That is me in the Hummer. I have a friend of mine who let me drive his Hummer. I got to keep it one extra day, too. That was fun. We barely got all of the lights and the sound working that day. It was a miracle that the whole thing came off, I’ll tell you. Let’s thank our media department for putting that together.
[End of Video]
And 22 months later, here we are. Here we are. In the book of Acts, Chapter 2, the Bible specifies a number of people who were baptized on the day of Pentecost. It says 3,000 were baptized. I am going to change gears a little bit and show you some charts and some graphs. Now before I get into the numbers thing, I want you to remember that these numbers are not profit charts. These numbers represent people who have moms and dad, people who have stories, people who matter to God.
We’ve only had one real attendance goal in the history of Fellowship Church. One day on a staff retreat we were dreaming. We thought it would be just phenomenal if we could hit 10,000 people in regular weekend attendance before we were ten years of age. Look at this first Attendance Chart. You can see that in 1990 we averaged 230 people in attendance. It goes up and up and up—10,416 people. Now we are not talking about membership here. We are talking about people who show up, human beings, only counted one time, every weekend here at Fellowship. And that is a staggering number to me, friends. Just think about that, 10,416 people. Think of the relational base they have. Think of the gift mix that they have. Think of the life stories that they have. Only God could do something like this.
This next chart is one that is near and dear to my heart. It is the Baptism Chart. We keep track of baptisms. Baptism is the first obedience test that we have the moment we trust Christ. And you can see, over the last twelve months, we have baptized 1,156 people. So 1,156 people have gone public with their faith, and 75% of those are adults, which is a rarity right up front. Most people after they pass the age of twelve, if they have not received Christ and gotten baptized, usually don’t do it. We are about life change. We never set out to be the biggest church in America; we want to be God’s church. And God is doing this deal. He is running the show. And we are just hanging on. But I am thrilled with those people who have stepped over the line of faith and are entering the waters of New Testament baptism.
Let’s look at another chart. This is just our Small Group Chart for the last couple of years. You’ll see that in 1999, we had an average attendance of 1,229 people in our small groups. Those are just adults. This month, the average is over 2,100. That is another great statistic. Let’s keep going. Curtis, keep on rolling the graphs, I will talk about them. Just throw them up there.
This is a Volunteer Graph. The day we moved into this facility, we had 846 volunteers. I am talking about people who are not paid who work to make Fellowship go and grow on the weekends and during the week. At this point, we have over 3,004 volunteers. And we need about 1,500 more. That thrills my heart. We are giving the ball of ministry to you. In our church, if you are a member, membership means ministry.
Let’s look at another one, Average Children’s Attendance. You won’t believe this one. You are looking at our future right here. Our average children’s attendance from birth to fifth grade is 1,890. We have had over 2,000 several weekends. Is that staggering? I hope you are saying, “What? This doesn’t happen.” You won’t find another church that can boast of these statistics. And we are just boasting for the Lord. You won’t find it.
Let’s have another one. Average Youth Attendance. This blew my doors. You will see, 791 junior high and high school students. You have got to shake your head.
Five years ago, I had a church growth expert interview me and talk to others at our church about the growth of our church. His name is John Vaughan. John goes around the world studying prevailing churches. I don’t remember very much about what he said but I do remember the last thing he said before he walked out of the door of my office. “Ed, as senior pastor I want to tell you something. Listen to me. Always remember to do in the future what has made your church great in the past.” God has definitely placed and spaced an incredible path for Fellowship Church.
And our goal for the next decade is simply this—and this is a very conservative goal: we want to double over the next decade. I truly believe that we can triple, maybe quadruple over the next decade. If we are going to do that, we have got to do some of the same great things we have done in the past. We have got to step along the same path but stepping with a greater intensity and a greater intentionality. I want to talk to you about several choices we have made in the past, choices that we will also have over the next decade. These choices are true individually and corporately.
The first set of choices we have is between the path of flexibility or the path of rigidity. Flexibility or rigidity. That is a choice that you have and a choice that I have. This week, I was working out with a good friend of mine. His name is Henry. During the workout, Henry looked at me and said, “Ed, have you stretched?” I said, “Come to think of it, no.” He said, “You have got to stretch.” He will remind me three of four times during the workout to stretch. Today, I asked him why. He said, “When you stretch it provides opportunity for your muscles to grow and it gets you flexible, and you won’t walk around really tight.” We have a flexible church. Fellowship Church is the most flexible flock I have ever seen. It takes flexible people to grow a fantastic church and my hat goes off to you for your flexibility.
Over the last ten years, two things have been set in stone. Number one: God has worked in incredible ways. We have seen that. Number two: Change has been a constant. Think how much we have changed. This is the original lectern that we used ten years ago. We have gone from this lectern to a Plexiglas pulpit, from a Plexiglas pulpit to a stool. Who knows where we will go in the future?
I want to recognize right now some of the most flexible people I have ever met, the original founding members of Fellowship Church. Would you please stand? The original founding members of Fellowship Church. Keep standing. I want you to look at them for just a second. Think about the changes that they have gone through. We have changed location three times. We have changed our name two times. We have gone from dressing up to dressing down. We have gone from Bach to rock. We have gone from the big throne chairs to no chairs. We have changed. And talk about flexible, talk about stretching, talk about doing the Gumby thing, you are looking at them. Riding the ragged edge of change. Thank you.
I talked to one of our volunteers a couple of weeks ago about a new program we are implementing, and here is what the guy said to me. Isn’t this great? “Whatever it takes.” I thank God for the opportunity to pastor people who have a “whatever-it-takes” attitude because we serve a rut-ruining God. God does not even have rigidity or people who are stuck in the mud in His economy. It doesn’t work that way. The whole thing about the Christian life is about change. I step over the line and receive Christ, and I am changed. And it is a continual change process as I go and grow with Him.
This past week, someone asked me this question. “Ed, what are the biggest mistakes Fellowship Church has ever made?” That was easy. I will tell you my three biggest mistakes. Number one, it was not going to a Saturday night service soon enough. Number two, it was trying to do simultaneous services. Because we didn’t do Saturday night services we tried to do services at the same time. I was doing the teaching part, while at another location, they were doing the singing part. We were on walkie-talkies, passing back and forth, running and trying to get in sync with one another. It lasted about four weeks. It was a dumb move, a mistake. I’ll tell you another mistake I made. I didn’t direct the move early enough to MacArthur High School. I thought about why I made those mistakes. It was because I didn’t want to change. I wasn’t flexible. I, your senior pastor, felt rigid. I wanted to stay in this comfortable rut. We have a natural tendency, don’t we, to like things to stay just the way they are—not to change, not to be flexible, not to step out of our comfort zone, not to do anything different. No creativity. No innovation. Rigidity will ruin a church. Let’s choose flexibility, not rigidity.
There is another set of choices. We can either choose service or stagnation. Service or stagnation. We have people who are willing to serve around here. We have over 3,000 servants right here at Fellowship with a “whatever-it-takes” attitude. Just tell me what to do, I am ready to serve. And Jesus, in Mark 10:43, equated servanthood with greatness. Tuesday morning at 6:30am, I walked into a local coffee shop. The woman who owns this shop has been coming to Fellowship for a while. She looked at me and said, “Ed, I have never seen a church in my life where people like to volunteer.” I said, “You are right. People at Fellowship Church like to volunteer.”
I want our paid staff to stand. Keep standing for a second. Obviously, some of us are all over the campus right now, but I want you to look at these paid staff because, folks, you cannot put up numbers or do graphs like we just saw without an incredible work ethic, a tireless focus. You can’t do it. These people love God and they are willing to roll up their sleeves, get grit under their fingernails, and do the work of the Lord. They know that the local church is the hope of the world. And I am so honored to be connected with a staff like we have. I have never seen a harder working staff than our staff. Just think about this for a second. If you are a staff member at Fellowship Church, you say “Goodbye” to your weekends. Some of you have two or three children. How would you like to say to them, “Oh, by the way, mommy or daddy will not be around for most of the weekend.” Try that shoe on. You have a job, but you can never really leave the job. You are always on. People see you at a restaurant, “Oh, let me talk to you about children’s ministry. Let me talk to you about the message. Let me talk to you about this or that.” I am not whining, I am telling you the real facts. But I am saying this: we do it because of the call. Many of those people you see were knocking down serious bucks in the marketplace. Now they aren’t. We pay well, but not that well. I can tell you that. So you ought to go to the staff and say, “Thank you for serving. Thank you for standing up. Thank you for being there.” You don’t put up numbers like you saw without an incredible staff. They understand Mark 10:43—servanthood and greatness. Thank you, staff.
The antithesis of being a servant would be to become stagnant. That word sounds kind of gross. Stagnant. A couple of years ago, I was walking the banks of one of the most beautiful rivers I have ever seen, the Snake River in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was taking in the mountains and the trees and the whole picture. I couldn’t help, though, notice certain pockets of the river where the water had become rerouted. It was kind of ugly. Stagnant water with its algae and slime. It was an incredible contrast, the stagnant water against the rushing, vibrant water of the Snake River.
Don’t ever allow anything to reroute you away from the moving mighty river of God’s church and His work. Don’t become stagnant. Don’t become a navel gazer. Don’t become a holy huddler. Don’t become “Us four and no more. It is our Christian clique and you can’t get in. You don’t look like us. Your skin is a different color. You don’t make the money we do. You didn’t go to the same university we did.” Don’t go there. Because if that is your deal, there are about 150 churches that will welcome you right around the Metroplex. And if that is you, you are taking up space here. We need the room. And I say that in love; I don’t say that in anger. We want people who serve, who are not stagnant.
Think about spiritual growth. All of spiritual maturity in the Bible is about getting outside of ourselves. It is about praying for one another, building one another up, encouraging one another, sharing with one another.
A couple of months ago, I was feeling stagnant. Yes, I was feeling a little bit stagnant, like I was on the side of the Snake River growing algae. And I thought what was I doing, where was I serving, where helping, where sharing. And I began to step out again in that river and whoom…. Don’t be on the side. Jump into the river.
Another set of choices I have jotted down: consistency or convenience. Consistency or convenience. We make no bones about it. Orbit your lives around what goes on here at Fellowship Church. Orbit them. Make this your spiritual base, your social base, your relational base, your emotional base. Reach up. That is the first part of our mission statement. That is expressing love to God in worship. Make weekend worship a time that you don’t miss unless you are skiing or at the beach. Don’t miss First Wednesday.
How about reaching out? Are you building relationships strategically and intentionally with those people outside the body of Christ? We are averaging 10,400 people during weekend worship. Think of the relational opportunities if we all prayed and built relationships with hell-bound and hell-raising people across our sphere of influence and invited them into our church. Think what could happen. We have the tag-team approach. You know people I don’t know. You have those people here at Fellowship and those of us who are gifted in communicating the gospel will do so, and together we will tag team and win this city to Christ.
Are you committed to reaching up and reaching out? How about reaching in? Are you in a small group? Are you experiencing community? Recently a young mother in our church died. She died suddenly. She left a husband, a ninth-grader, and an elementary-aged child. About two hours after this had occurred, their Home Team leader was on the scene. One of our student pastors was on the scene. Our elementary pastor was on the scene. They were there to surround and help that family through a dark valley. What is going to happen when your roof caves in? What is going to happen when you get the phone call? Who are you going to turn to?
We must connect. We must get involved with those small groups. We must be consistent with it as we help and minister to one another. We want to grow smaller while we grow larger. That is one of the benefits of a big church. A growing church is a godly church. If it is around a big population base, it should be big. If it is in the rural area of our country, it should be smaller. But one of the great things about a big church is that it affords us the opportunity for a wide relational base. You can meet anybody and everybody here at Fellowship: teachers, professional athletes, doctors, lawyers, pastors. You name it; they are here.
But it also provides intentional areas of care. Think about the story I just shared. If we were a small church, we would have one pastor over there. We had two, plus we had some home team people. Also, a big church provides resources to do better and more quality-driven programs. And also—I love this—a big church is reflective of what heaven is going to be like. Heaven is not going to be a tiny place. It is going to be a big place. So that is why I say we are not a big church, we are a small town. A small town that knows how to get smaller and smaller while we get larger and larger. That is consistency. We can take the path of consistency or the path of convenience.
You’ll not find convenience in the Bible. “Let’s just do what is convenient.” We let a drop of water or some game or a recreational pursuit or this or that keep us from church. Every time we open this Word in any context here, life change takes place. Be a consistent person.
There are some other choices I want to talk to you about: generosity or selfishness. Generosity is one of the character qualities of God. It is woven intrinsically into who He is. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave….” We are to be generous with our time, generous with our abilities, generous with our resources. A brand new believer, a young guy in our church with a lot of means—I am talking about a lot of means—walked up to me and began to share with me his life story. One day he talked to me about the fact that he was scaling down in his lifestyle so he could leverage more money for kingdom pursuits here at Fellowship. I said, “God, let that be me.” And then he asked me, “Of all the people who attend Fellowship, how many percentage-wise actually give generously to the church?” I told him we have a really great giving church, about 25% give. “Twenty-five percent pretty much pay the way for the other 75%?” He couldn’t believe me. I reiterated that it was great. “Great? When I realize what God has done for me, I can’t give enough. You mean you have 75% of the people who show up who just don’t do a thing financially?”
Hey, a lot of us are going to have to come to a time in our lives when we have a big call to make. You know what the call is going to be? How many cars, how many homes, how many planes will we stack up? How many decimal points will we add behind our compensation? You tell me you are going to give to colleges and charities and you are not going to give a minimum worship requirement to the local church, 10% of what you make. Are you going to hide behind accountants and all this rigmarole and not come clean before God?
Do you realize that if the entire church made below the poverty level and all of us just gave 5% of what we made to Fellowship Church our budget would be about double what it is right now? We have a lot of people who are robbing God.
I have a friend with whom I have lunched about ten times. I have picked up the tab nine out of ten times. He is one of those slow pay artists. “I’ll get you next time.” Now, after about ten times, I decided that we would not continue to meet for lunch anymore. A lot of people treat God’s church that way. Slow pay artists. You know, $100 doesn’t seem that much on the golf course, but at church… “Hey, I’m giving $100.” It is like this in God’s economy. If you made $30,000 a year and you give $3,000 a year, that is huge. If you make $300,000 a year and give $30,000, that is weak stuff, man. You are barely there. So a lot of us are going to have to step up and give like we have never given before. Why? Because God wants to bless you financially. Why? Because it shows that God is number one.
Also, let me tell you this. We are embarking in the fall on a $20 million expansion. We are packed out. In Children’s Church, they are hanging from the rafters…literally. Our atrium, which we thought was big enough, is exploding with people. We have one of the largest athletic ministries in the country, but we have no fields or gymnasiums. Here is what we are going to do. It is a major step of faith. We are going to build a 110,000 square foot children/seminar area. When I say seminars, I mean bible study classes and other classrooms. Right now, people are meeting in the halls. We are also going to take our atrium and expand it three times and build a Barnes and Nobel type food court—a place where you can hang out before and after services and experience community. We may even have a restaurant or two cater food. We also are going to dig a lake out here and with the dirt, we are going to move a lot of it south and bring that land out of the flood plain to make some athletic fields.
That is just the beginning, but it is going to take a lot of money. And if we just gave, we could easily do it. It is a no-brainer. But the choice is up to you. It is up to me. You will be hearing much more about that later. But don’t be selfish. Be generous. God loves a cheerful giver. If you are not cheerful, don’t give.
Let me just close the book and bring you back to that story that I opened up with, you know, when I got out of my comfort zone, walked into my backyard, used the pavestone to pave the path. God has an awesome plan for Fellowship over the next decade. If we could see the steps He wants us to take—wow—we wouldn’t believe it. Follow that path. Follow God’s way. Ten years from now we will look back and say it’s “Another God-Made Decade.”