church planting

really serving

kevinhaglund Leave a comment

Suzanne and I and our kids had the opportunity to do a service project this past Saturday, Valentine’s Day. It was an incredible experience! We served alongside a number of our friends who are starting browns mill church with us. The day was a bit of a struggle for some of us more “take charge” personalities. I had to keep reminding myself that my job for the day was that of servant and servants don’t have an agenda!

I’ve seen some churches do service projects and while they did actually help people, it seemed to be more of a publicity stunt to garner more buzz about their church. One church I visited promoted a 30 day “love our community” campaign. They did some extraordinary acts of service, captured it on video and then came back to their auditorium and showed everybody the footage.

A few days before our service project, I was reading through Matthew 6: “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ in front of others, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then you Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

The problem is, we want to leverage our serving opportunities. We think, “If people see us serving, they will see that we really care about people and come to one of our services and give their lives to Christ.” We have it backwards. What if our acts of service are not a means to an end, but rather an end in themselves. Maybe our acts of service are for our ultimate good and not for others. When we really serve, we are humbling ourselves, turning over the control to someone else–we have no agenda other than what is given to us. If we serve with our own agenda, that is not at all the case. When was the last time you served with no agenda?

immeasurably more than I imagined!

kevinhaglund Leave a comment

I have been aware of the promise in Ephesians 3:20 for many years: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…” I think many of us could look back over 2, 3, 5, 10 years and say, “Wow, I never imagined that I would be doing what I’m doing now.” However, just in the past few weeks, I feel like God has given me a glimpse of “the unimaginable” He has in store for me and, boy, is it exciting! Here is a brief summary…

God has brought us approximately 40 individuals who have at least expressed an interest in being a part of browns mill church in our first two core group meetings! As Tim Coleman and I first met to discuss planting a church, we both sensed that God was calling us to a Kingdom impacting role. At the time, we weren’t sure what that was going to entail. Now we know at least a piece of what this Kingdom impacting role will be. Not only will Tim and I be planting a church together, we have been selected to train church planters all across the Southeast as part of the world-wide missional movement Missio as the directors of Missio’s Southeast regional hub!

For our “day jobs,” God brought an opportunity for both Tim and me to lead a sports-related non-profit ministry called Ultimate Leader. The primary purpose of Ultimate Leader is to impact our world for Christ through the medium of sport. This past Friday, we sat in a meeting of Christian businessmen and other like-minded sports ministries discussing global partnerships that will result in the gospel being shared worldwide and churches being planted–especially in “closed” countries!

You might say, “Kevin, you’re a worship leader. What about that part of your passion.” Well, each week, I have the privilege of leading our core group in worship and I’m learning to play guitar! On top of that, this weekend, January 25th, I will be leading worship at First Baptist Church of West Monroe, LA, a 7,000 member congregation pastored by Dr. John Avant, former pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Fayetteville, GA, and former Vice-President of Evangelism at the SBC’s North American Mission Board.

I was content as a worship leader, but God saw fit to reassign me. It is both exciting and humbling to see the role that God seems to be preparing for me! More than ever, I recognize the need to cling to Him. I just pray that I don’t mess it up!