the books that have impacted me most

I like to read. In the past two weeks I’ve started and finished two books: Pop Goes the Church (Tim Stevens) and Foundations of Wesleyan Arminian Theology (Mildred Bangs Wynkoop). How’s that for an odd combination?

I was looking at my bookshelf today and thinking about the books that have had the greatest impact (other than the Bible) in shaping my life. So, if you’re interested, here’s my list:

The Life You’ve Always Wanted (John Ortberg). Love Ortberg. Love this book. I’ve probably read it three times. Practical help for living out spiritual disciplines.

Your God Is Too Safe (Mark Buchanan). Whoa. I bet I’ve read this one five times. I keep going back to it. I bet I’ve preached half-dozen sermons based on its content, too. Strong.

The Jesus I Never Knew (Philip Yancey). Read anything you can by Yancey. This book gave me a fresh perspective on who Jesus is. I need to read it again.

The Cost of Discipleship (Dietrich Bonhoeffer). This classic book kicked my butt (in more ways that one). Convicting. Challenging.

Lost In America (Tom Clegg and Warren Bird). This book totally made my heart start beating hard for people that are far from God. I refer back to it often.

Next on my reading list: Tribes (Seth Godin). Keep on reading! Readers are leaders. Leaders are readers.

good problems

I’ve been involved in lots of meetings lately where we’ve been discussing strategy for sustaining the tremendous growth that NewPointe has been experiencing. It’s amazing to think that, barely two years into the new building, we’re running out of space. The kids’ areas are nearly full. The auditorium is getting more and more crowded. The parking lot and traffic flow is getting more and more challenging.

Consider this:

Attendance last Sunday: 2, 990

Attendance on the same Sunday last year: 2,392

That’s a 25% increase.

In fact, NewPointe’s attendance numbers have nearly doubled since moving in to the new facility (26 months ago).

And we know, these are all good problems to have. We’re very thankful for problems like this. And we feel very challenged. We’ve been meeting in order to try find creative solutions to these “growing pains.”

All options are being considered. What I’m asking for from you is prayer. Would you please pray that as leaders we would make well-informed, Spirit-led decisions? Would you also begin to pray about what role God would have you play as we move forward? We don’t know for sure what that looks like (we’re still hammering out the details) but as we move forward, we’re going to need prayer, support, more volunteers, and a can-do approach everyone connected to NewPointe.

Good problems. No easy solutions.

50 pound challenge update (week 3)

Through three weeks of the competition…

Craig: –17 lbs.

Yours truly: –14 lbs.

Craig is still in the lead…but it ain’t over till it’s over.

Do you seriously think I’m gonna let Craig win this one? :)

mark and louie

These guys are cracking me up. Here are a couple pics from the past two Sundays.

January 25 Shop Talk guys “pimped Dwight’s ride.” VERY funny. (My favorite part was seeing Firman dance to the Pimp My Ride theme music. Classic.

January 18 they showed us how “get more acceleration” out of a ‘96 Ford Ranger.

I hope you’ve been able to catch their act. At the end of the series we’ll try to give a video link so you can watch all five episodes.

you do not have because you do not ask

James 4:2. See, I think sometimes you just gotta ask. Do you need to be healed? Ask God to heal you. I believe he can do anything. I believe he’s bigger than your circumstances. I believe he answers prayer.

Ever hear somebody pray, “Lord, if it be your will…”? Don’t pray that way. Tell God how you feel. He wants you to be honest with him. Tell him what your needs are. Ask him for his help.

I love praying with people. It’s one of my favorite things to do. And when I get to pray for people, I believe it changes me a little…and it changes them, too. We’re all always better off when we pray for each other.

I know this, when I pray with people and I ask God for something on their behalf, he always responds. He always knows what’s best. He’s absolutely in control. Is that a guarantee that you’re always going to get exactly what you ask for? No. But God will, in fact, give you the grace necessary to handle any situation.

So ask him. Maybe the reason you don’t have is because you just haven’t asked.

you do not want to be late for church this sunday!

Every single Sunday, I’m amazed at how many people come in to the services after they’ve already begun. I realize that it’s not always easy to make it through the traffic, park, walk in, check your kids in, get a cup of coffee, etc. BUT, if you’re five minutes late, you miss a lot. I often wonder if those who are late even realize what they’ve missed (because the opener is usually something quite amazing.

I get that there are just going to be some Sundays where someone simply cannot make it on time in spite of their best efforts. But just let me say this:

YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE LATE FOR CHURCH THIS SUNDAY!

Trust me. You don’t want to be that person at the office on Monday that, when people are talking about what happened, you’ll be clueless. Awkward!

So give yourself an extra ten minutes Sunday morning just to make sure.

That’s all I’m sayin’.

stage sets

NewPointe’s all-volunteer visual arts team does a terrific job designing and building stage sets. I was looking at the set from our current series, XCELR8, admiring the work…and it got me to begin thinking about some of the other great sets done by our team over the past six months. So I thought I’d go ahead and share some.

The current set for XCELR8

UnTypical

Christmas, What’s the Pointe?

This set was done kind of as a “filler” in between series. But still very cool.

Prayer Works

We’ve got a talented and dedicated team. They work hard to create environments that will be thought-provoking, interesting, and relevant. Love those guys.

the creation of a series title

We've known for quite some time that our next series at NewPointe (the one following XCELR8) was going to be about the Holy Spirit. The more challenging part has been coming up with a name for the series.

For a while, whe thought it might be called Wild Goose Chase (taken from Mark Batterson's book with the same title). In talking things through with Dwight, we discovered that the Wild Goose Chase thing wasn't really clicking with him (mainly because he'd been approaching the series from a different angle that Goose Chase's.

Through my discussions with Dwight, I learned that he was planning to take a more theological (yet, of course, practical) approach to the series. He said he wanted the series to be more along the lines of, "This is who the Holy Spirit is and this is the role he plays in our lives."

So armed with those helpful details, we took about 30 minutes in our weekly creative team brainstorm meeting to, well, brainstorm a series title.

Here are a few of the many ideas that made it to the conference room whiteboard:

• Invisible
• Ghost Stories
• Third Person
• Mysterious
• Holy Spirit (why not call it what it is, right?)

For a long time Holy Spirit was in the lead. Then Invisible pick up a head of steam. There was much discussion and debate. We left the meeting without a title...but with a bunch of ideas.

I stayed in the conference room to do more research and brainstorming. By the time I finished, I was feeling pretty set on calling the series Third Person with a tag line of A series on the Holy Spirit (although I knew Dave D, our communications director, would not like the tag line).

I continued brainstorming. By the time I was done, I fired off four title ideas to Dwight. Here's what I sent him:

• Third Person
• Up Close and Personal
• Encounter
• Invisible

I told him my favorite so far was Third Person. In the meantime, DD and I chatted in his office about the series. I floated some of the titles by him. He liked Third Person but he also liked Up Close and Personal with a tag line of "Getting to know the Holy Spirit."

Dwight liked it too. And so...that's what we landed on: Up Close and Personal (Getting to know the Holy Spirit).

I like it for a couple reasons:

1. It's straightforward. With the tag line, it's not hard to tell what the series is about.
2. The Holy Spirit is someone who should be both up close and personal in our lives.

So there you have it. The creation of a series title. Up Close and Personal. It's always amazing to me to go back and track the progression of an idea. We started with Wild Goose Chase and, eventually, with the help of a lot of smart people, landed on something completely different.

The Up Close series starts February 22. Come and get to know the Holy Spirit. It's going to be amazing.

50 pound challenge update (week 2)

Week one is complete. The standings:

Craig Morris: -14 lbs.

John Bunn: -10 lbs.

Craig is still in the lead in the quest to drop 50. He wins two weeks in a row. Way to go, Craig! (Anybody wanna change their vote now?)

sledding @ mt. newpointe

Saturday, despite 18 degree temperatures and a stiff winter breeze, about 30 folks showed up at Mt. NewPointe for a sled party. And it was a blast! The kids and I sledded for almost 3 hours. Danny had his camera with him so I borrowed these pics from his Facebook page.

Six people on Bill Gibson's toboggan. Terrific!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Yoders brought an awesomely slick tube. So, of course, I had to give it a try (well, about 10 tries).

 

 

 

 

 

A bunch of us going at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andrew said the snow actually tasted pretty good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Congrats to Myron and Heather Yoder for setting a new NewPointe sledding distance record! They made it well into the cornfield on several attempts.

Hope to see more of you out there next time!

sunday's scuds (january 18, 2009)

Sunday we started a new series called XCELR8. It's about speeding up in five important areas of our lives so we can experience breakthroughs. Here are the scuds from part one (Faith):

• Christianity cannot be lived out in moderation.
• Satan did not create fun. He corrupts is, but he did not create it.
• Around here, we think it's good to have fun in church. If you're not having fun, you're not having church.
• Faith is not believing in something or for something. Faith is believing in Someone.
• We should pray for things but we don't put our faith in the outcome of those prayers. We put our faith in God.
• If you put your faith in getting something, you'll be disappointed. If you put your faith in Someone (Jesus), you'll never be disappointed.
• We we believe FOR something, we put limits on God.
• Besides, you and I aren't smart enough to know what we need.
• You can't have faith in someone you don't know very well.

It was a great start to the series. A big shout-out goes out to the NewPointe band and Abby Bunnelle for kickin' things off right with "Free Ride." Awesome. Another huge shout goes to Mark "Motor Mouth" Murphy and is lovely assistant Louie for nailing the premier episode of "Shop Talk." Strong, guys! And one more shout goes to everyone who was baptized on Sunday. Way to go! It was very special to celebrate life-change with you.

the real john bunn (part two)

I had the privilege of sharing this story twice this week. On consecutive days (both, strangely, at lunch meetings at Bob Evans).

It's the story of my REAL conversion. I grew up in church. I "asked Jesus into my heart" at a young age (around 5, I think). I was generally a good boy. Grew up in the church (my dad was a Nazarene pastor). For the most part, I did all the stuff that was expected of me. Never got in too much trouble. Never disobeyed too badly. And all the while, I was able to hone skills that made me really good at faking stuff. So many years in church and around church people enabled me to understand what what expected of me and I became good at doing exactly what needed to be done in order to live up to those expectations.

Then I went to college--a Christian college, in fact. And there, while on my own, I began a journey that was leading me further and further away from God. But I still knew how to play the game (still do, in fact). Still knew what I needed to do in order to impress people and make them think I was a "good Christian kid."

I married Jenny right after college and began a career in the newspaper business in Pennsylvania. We attended church every Sunday. I even taught the junior high Sunday school class. But the truth is, I was just going through the motions. It took no time at all for me to be more interested in climbing the corporate ladder than having a relationship with my Heavenly Father.

After a couple years my newspaper company promoted me. Jenny and moved to Zanesville, Ohio. And I kept climbing that corporate ladder. Status and stuff became more important to me than people and faith. But we still attended church. That's what "good" people do, right?

While in Z-ville, we crashed hard. Train-wreck type stuff. But somehow, strangely, I had this sense that God was still at work in my life. Like...he hadn't written me off.

In the meantime, I kept climbing that ladder. And after a few years the Columbus Dispatch came calling. They wanted to know if I'd be interested in managing their classified advertising sales staff. Jenny and I viewed it as a great opportunity. So we made the move. But I'm convinced that God was still at work.

A friend told me about a church in the Columbus area that he thought we should check out (this is some of the God-at-work part). So we took the advice and visited Grove City Church of the Nazarene during one of our weekend house-hunting visits.

We loved the church. And, amazingly, decided to look for a house in  Grove City so we could be near the church.

We moved and began attending GCCN regularly. We felt God's presence there. We felt like we heard from him there. And then one night, during a revival service (I know revivals are unusual these days, but 14 years ago or so, GCCN was still having them), I really felt God speak to me. And I remember what he said.

It wasn't audible but it was something like this: "John, are you ready to stop playing games with me?"

Tears streaming down my face, I went forward and kneeled at the altar and prayed and prayed and prayed. I told God I was sorry for the way I'd been treating him. I told him I was sorry for the way I'd been living. I asked him to forgive me. I told him that I was done playing games and that I was really to surrender fully to him.

I cried like a baby. Jenny prayed with me. Together, we just gave it all to God and asked him to take full control of our lives.

And he did. Neither of us will ever forget that night in Grove City when God showed up in an unbelievable way. It literally changed the direction of our lives. And my life has been different--in the best possible way--ever since.

Jenny and I began a journey together with God that I'll continue to share in future posts. To be continued...

the real john bunn (part one)

I've heard a lot of positive feedback about Dwight's message on Sunday. In case you missed it, he talked about the importance of being real. And man, that resonates with me. I want to live an authentic life. Nobody likes a fake. Dwight talked asked the question, "What if NewPointe got real?" What if we were a "real" church? Authentic. Genuine. What you see is what you get?

Interestingly, I met with a guy this week who did not hear Dwight's message Sunday. The only time he heard him speak was at a conference a few months ago. Check out what he asked me about Dwight: Is that guy real?

I was pleased to tell him, "That dude's as real as real gets." I'm so thankful for a leader like Dwight who's authentic and, well, just really real.

I want to be real. My hope is that those who know me would say, "John? Yeah. He's the real deal."

With that thought in mind, I thought it might be good medicine for me to post a series of blogs about my life. And just get real right here...in blogland. So here's the first bit of the "real me."

I'll start with this: I know myself well enough to know that there's a part of me, while I'm writing this, that sincerely wants authenticity. I want to be, for lack of a better word, exposed. I think it's healthy and faith-growing. There's also a part of me that doesn't REALLY want that. There's stuff in my life that I'd prefer to keep to myself. But I'm going to choose authenticity.

There's also a part of me that thinks to myself, wow, posting something like this is going to make me look pretty spiritual to my blog readers. They're going to go, "Wow, what courage John has."

In other words, I'm searching my heart right now to really be sure that what I'm writing is not a "look at me, I'm so spiritual" thing.

So as you read about the real me over the next few posts,  go ahead and run it through the filter of: it's more than I already know about John but it's not EVERYTHING. After all, he's still going to present himself in the best light possible.

I hope that some of the stuff I share over the next few posts helps you get to know the real me. I hope it helps me process some stuff in my life. And I hope it's an encouragement to you.

Thanks for reading.

let's get this party started

Danny posted this video on his Facebook page and on YouTube. It's worth sharing. Here it is, the opening song from last Sunday @ NewPointe.

Thanks Danny!

50 pound challenge update (week 1)

Week one is complete. The standings:

Craig Morris: -9 lbs.

John Bunn: -8 lbs.

Craig takes the early lead in the quest to drop 50. He's also been catching me in the poll.

If you haven't voted yet for who you think will win, you can do it here.

You can also change your vote. And it's cool with me. Either way you vote motivates me. If you vote for me, I want to prove you right. If you vote against me, I want to prove you wrong. And I will. :)

Congrats, Craig, on winning week one.

sunday's scuds (january 11, 2009)

Sunday was the conclusion of the two-part What If... series on vision. Here are the scuds from Dwight's message:

• There's a gap between what we're know for and who we really are.
• When there's a gap, we learn to pretend--in order to maintain our image. And we're all pretty good at it.
• There's nothing wrong with being known for something. The problem is when there is a gap.
• I'm tempted to pretend, to lie, to exaggerate, because as your pastor I know you have certain expectations of me.
• Is there anybody in your life who really knows you?
• Each of us need to be known by someone so that we all can be who God created us to be. That's why God gave us the Church...so we could quit pretending.
• But we've all been part of a church or a group where that hasn't been true. And what happens is that what was intended to be freeing has become very restrictive.
• If we're not condemned (Romans 8:1), should we condemn other people? If we're accepted, should we accept others?
• Some of the most judgmental people I know are church people.
• And we fight over the stupidest stuff (because I'd rather feel superior to you than help you).
• You know the reason why so many of us are sick? Because we've got so many secrets.
• God wants you to pray specific prayers.
• The only way you can encourage someone is to first know the areas in which they are discouraged. (Hebrews 10:24-25)
• Temptation never knocks on the door. It leans on the doorbell.
• Who do you have in your life to help you bridge the gap?
• If you're carrying it by yourself I bet you're not carrying it very well.

Dwight concluded by sharing about the upcoming Group Link. Click right here to find out how you can get in on it.

links worth checking out

Here are some things I've bumped into on the 'net recently that you may be interested in:

• Don't know how you're doing with your New Years resolutions by now. Many people begin to struggle with their commitments with a few weeks of making them. Here's a great blog post by Mark Batterson that I found very helpful: New Years Resolutions
• Here's a very cool new web site with a bunch of stories worth listening to. Check it out: I Am Second
• Great web resource for fasting that I found a couple weeks ago: Awakening. If you're planning a fast in 2009, click on the "fasting resources" tab for some great info.
• Here's a revolutionary online Bible that enables community and collaboration like never before: YouVersion.
• Cool web app that allows you to create, post, and analyze polls online, for free! You can even export them directly to your blog, Facebook, or other apps: Vizu.

Enjoy!

your vote counts!

Online Surveys & Market Research

the 50 pound challenge

 

                        VS.

 

  

That's right it's me vs. Craig Morris to see who can be the first to lose 50 big ones.

Yes, it's sad that I'm carrying an extra 50 lbs. Yes, I'm embarrassed by it. But I'm highly motivated to lose it. And knowing that those who read my blog now know about it is extra motivation.

The contest began Monday. I'll be updating the standings weekly. Stay tuned.

And, by the way, who's your pick to win the 50 Pound Challenge? Craig, or Me? Leave a comment with your pick.

would i loan that to someone?

In a recent post, I stated that one of my goals for 2009 is to be more generous. Specifically, I want to give more in 2009 than I did in 2008. And I'm learning that if I'm going to be in a position where I can truly be generous, I need to have my finances in order.

A few years ago, Jenny and I completed Financial Peace University. It helped us tremendously. We began to really, intentionally figure out our finances. This past summer we finally paid off our last debt (our minivan) and as a result we are now debt free (mortgage notwithstanding)!

But we realize that we haven't arrived. We need to keep learning more about our finances and we need to stay intentional. Anyway...In an effort to do that, I was listening to a recent message by Andy Stanley (one of my favorite guys). He just started a series at North Point called "Balanced." It's all about balancing your finances.

Ever get one of those nuggets from a message that makes you go, "Wow! Now that's something I can use!--That's very practical."? Had one of those as I was listening to Andy. Here it is:

"I have a general rule...I try not to ever purchase anything I wouldn't loan out. I think, okay, would you loan that to someone? No. Then okay...you have the potential of loving that more than people."

What a great rule. If you're like me, you may have the tendency to put things ahead of people. I don't want to do that.

May I always ask the question before every purchase I make: Would I loan that to someone? Good stuff.

You can listen to Andy's full message by clicking here .

great pic from kidstuf

Todd and Lenny. Very funny stuff in KidStuf Sunday. Hope you got in on it. Great photo by Paul Rothel. He's so RESOURCEFUL. :)

sunday's scuds (january 4, 2009)

Dwight kicked off a 2-part series called What If? on Sunday. It's all about having big vision and dreaming big. In fact, part one was called "Thinking Big." Just let me say this: STRONG! Here are the scuds:

• Aren't you glad that somebody 80 years ago said, "What if?" (talking about those who started Sugarcreek Free Methodist Church).
• If you're not thinking big, you're just going to live life in an ordinary way in 2009.
• Most Christians live like atheists--we worry about stuff that is unimportant rather than making the kingdom of God their primary concern.
• The reason the economy freaks us out is because our focus is on the wrong things.
• Life is too short for us to get caught up in the routine and the mundane stuff of life.
• God is not offended when you ask for big things.
• What are you doing right now that if God were to die, you'd have to stop doing?
• The size of your prayers communicate the size of your God to your kids.
• Maybe the reason your kids don't want to follow your God is because your God is too small.
• Your problem is not that you need to love God more. Your problem is that you need to understand how much God loves you.
• Fear of what people think of you will keep you from thinking big.
• Most of us are afraid to think big because we're afraid that other people will think we're nuts.
• Most people run from their problems. David ran to his.
• Don't ever ask, "Can God use me in this situation?" He absolutely can--beyond your wildest dreams.
• I don't believe we've seen anything close to what God ultimately wants to do around here.

"Someday thousands of people will come..."

--Earle Hershberger, 25 years ago

2009 bible reading plan

If one of your 2009 goals is to read the entire Bible, here's a great resource for you:

You Version :: One Year Bible

It’s cool because it allows you to read the Bible for free from an iPhone, iPod, BlackBerry, web-enabled phone, or any computer connected to the Internet.

I'll be using it as a guide. Care to join me this year?