Being on campus from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. may seem like an interesting way to earn a living, but David Fischer sees that as his job.

And, he is more interested in developing relationships that lead to presenting the gospel and developing disciples than in making living.

David is a missionary to the campus of Austin Peay State University.  He is connected with Bethel Community Church but he is responsible for raising his own support.

Spending just an hour listening to David talk about his passion for the outreach to the campus makes me wonder why I’m not doing more.

During the school year, David has a Sunday evening worship service on campus that draws at least 100 students each week.  Students at the Sunday night service break off into small groups that meet after the worship service or at other times during the week.

It is in those small groups that students develop relationships that lead to discipleship.  That is important because without the relationships, discipleship is nothing more than harassment, David observes.

David has a key leader and two apprentice leaders assigned to each small group.  Those are the primary ones David is pouring his life into.  He is constantly in contact with those leaders meeting with them regularly, but not micromanaging them.

David says the relationships he develops and those his leaders develop are key to their ability to draw students and spread the gospel on campus.

David believes that the world can be changed by reaching college students.  And, he is convinced that reaching Generation Next will happen by going to them, not by asking them to come to you.

And, David says, it’s all about relationships.   It is working for David.  Have you tried it?

There are no pews in the church; or, there is no church in the pews.  The church is not in the pews or in a building or in a location.  If church is the church, it is scattered.

For the past month, I have been forceful in comments about challenging the status quo, changing to meet the challenge of this generation and having the courage to make a difference.

I have been called to move from generalities to specifics.  This is my manifesto.

I speak of my own local church but the truths apply to the larger church in general.

I love my church.  I am committed to my church.  I am passionate about my church.  Consequently, I am ready and willing to fight for my church.

The enemy with the potential of bringing the church down is not outside the church.  The enemy is within.  The enemy is present from the pew to the pulpit.  We must identify, challenge and fight complacency, apathy and mediocrity wherever they occur.

Identifying and achieving the objective will require rocking the boat.  It will require speaking out.  It will require taking a stand.  Humility is essential.  Timidity is unacceptable.

Making the church what it needs to be will require getting out of the pews because church doesn’t have cushions.  Remember the First Century church — the one we say we are modeling? Do we see them sitting in pews?  We occasionally find them gathered, but we most often find them scattered, on the move and in action.  When we find the New Testament church arguing – and we do find them arguing – it is generally about practice and never about worship style, budgets, building plans or staff assignments.

Changing the church is not about changing the pastor or the staff.  Changing the church is about changing me.  My church will never be missional, relevant, radical, primal, engaging, piercing or exciting until I am.  So, change is about me.

I am a man of unclean lips.  I live among a people of unclean lips.  But, I believe.  God, help my unbelief.

I can’t determine what programs work for you or don’t work for you.  But, I can for me.

I’ve taught Sunday school for the last 500 years (give or take about 465 years) with the past six being a young adult class.  When my commitment ends in a few weeks for this Sunday school year, I am shifting my energies to a community group.  That decision was carefully weighed.  I’ll explain later.

I have mentored and counseled young men for a least the past 15 years.  Beginning in January, I will make that more intentional, purposeful and directed.  I have found a model I want to put in place.

Being the church requires being flexible.  It requires being open to change.  It isn’t regimented, scheduled or programmed.  It is frustrating, time consuming, exhausting and draining.  It requires lots of grace, acceptance and relationships.  It is short on legalism.

But, we won’t realize that as long as we sit in pews daydreaming through another sermon.   We discover that out there where there are no pews, no stained glass windows, and no schedules and where sermons are lived out.  And, it doesn’t depend on professional ministers.  It depends on professing ministers.  When you look carefully at the New Testament church, the ministers are those who profess to follow Christ.

Last week, I was asked when this new ship would show up.  My response was, “when we build it.”  It doesn’t involve a committee.  It doesn’t require a vote. It is not covered in the by laws.  It doesn’t need a budget allocation.  It requires passion. It’s time to get started.  Are you ready?

June Cleaver is dead.  So is Ward.  And Wally.  And, the Beaver, too.

Actually, the Cleavers only existed on television from 1957 through 1963.  But, they were the real American family.

In some ways, we still believe the Cleavers of Mayfield actually existed.  We programmed church to cater to the Cleavers who were consistent, dedicated, followed Dr. Spock, and predictable.

But, that family doesn’t exist.  Actually, it never did.

What does exist is a radically different family in the 21^st Century.  And, church needs to be different in order to have an impact.

I keep coming back to this question with haunting regularity – are we willing to change to meet the challenge of a new generation?

Meeting the challenge of a new generation requires us to be radically different.  That may mean different programs.  That may mean different schedules.  That may mean church looks radically different than it did 40 years ago.

It means that we have to challenge the status quo.  It means we must look at the objective.  It means the way we always did things needs to be evaluated.

I’m perplexed by the mentality of protecting the program to the point of going down with the ship.  The goal is not to save the ship.  The goal is to get to a destination.  The ship is only a means to get there.  If the current ship is sinking, then find another ship.

If the Beaver did something like staying on a sinking ship, Wally would say, “Beav, that was pretty dumb.”

I’m ready to try out a new boat.  Is anybody else interested in staying afloat?

“The greatest churches in history are YET to be!  Will you pay the price of conflict and criticism to be used greatly by God?”

Last week, I retweeted that quote as a retweet from Rick Warren.  Retweeting a retweet is pretty risky.  But, I trusted both the tweet source and the retweet source.  And, I strongly agreed with the statement.  But, since I posted it, it has haunted me.

There have been some pretty awesome churches in history.  There are some pretty awesome churches around now.

Some of my friends in new emerging churches and new church plants insist that starting new is much easier than trying to change an existing structure.  I can’t disagree with them, but I still won’t give up on the potential for change in the traditional established church.

Yes, new churches can have significant impact if they persevere and get established.  But, I have to believe there will be a tremendous power if an older, established church can retool for ministry in the 21^st Century.  Think of the resources an established church can put into ministry if they will only catch a vision for reaching the 21^st Century.

I realize the frustration of trying to make the change.  I am painfully aware of the price of conflict and criticism.  But, I’m not sure I have been strongly committed to really making change happen.  Perhaps I have only been critical.

At times, I am convinced the ship is sinking.  I get disheartened when fellow strugglers lose hope and abandon ship or worse, stay on board and quit fighting for change.

But, I believe that in time, the ship can be righted.  It can be put on course.  It can come through with guns blazing.  And when it does, the sleeping giant will roar.

It is going to take a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of patience, a lot of conflict, and a lot of criticism.  Even so, I am convinced that an old, traditional, downtown church can regain relevance and significance.  It is worth it, for the glory of God.

While in Africa, I had the opportunity to work with three tremendous young guys.  They were the best.  The four of us lived together in a mud hut room in a village for almost a week.

We had a lot of great times together and some interesting conversations throughout the nights.

As young guys will do, they loved to play around, goof off, explore, climb trees, climb rocks, chase crocodiles, and joke around.  But, when it was time to work, they worked.  Our work was sharing the gospel.  They did it.  We spent much of our days walking through the village talking with people about their faith, telling them about Jesus and answering their questions about following Jesus.

The guys had more opportunities to share the gospel in a week than most guys their age have in a year.

Greg, Ben, and Jonathan took turns presenting the gospel.  As we moved through the first day, they each had the kinks worked out of their presentation.  They developed a smooth presentation.  They learned how to alter their presentation based on the situation.  They learned to answer questions and come up with appropriate biblical texts to back up their statements.

Along the way, they developed greater confidence in their own faith.  As they answered questions, they resolved some of their own questions.  During a few group Bible study sessions, we answered some of their deeper questions and addressed issues.

The guys became stronger in their faith during the week.  They gained confidence in their ability to present the gospel.  They had opportunities they will remember for a lifetime.  And, I’m certain that they now will be bolder witnesses in many other situations.

Now each of them has the experience and the potential to lead other teams back to villages in the future.  I’m proud to have had the opportunity to work with these guys.

While in the village of Zaremtenga in the East Mamprusi Region of Ghana, our interpreter took us to a house that was starkly different from all the others.  He identified it as the former chief’s house.

The house was built with rocks and mortar as a contrast to the mud huts throughout the village.  While a few mud huts had tin roofs instead of thatch roofs, this house had tin roofs with well-defined hip rooflines.

As we entered the courtyard, our interpreter pointed out a grave crypt that was not uncommon for village courtyards but this one was significantly larger and included an uncharacteristic headstone.  The headstone indicated two bodies in the crypt.  One was an earlier village chief who, according to the marker, was a veteran of World War II.  The second was his son who, again according to the marker, was the first literate chief of the village and serve as chief for 43 years.

Our interpreter took us on through the house complex pointing out the obvious rundown condition.  He showed us the rows of rooms were the chief’s 17 wives had lived and pointed out that he had 62 children.  He explained that after the chief died several years ago, his sons were unable to maintain the house.  Sons eventually moved away and took their mothers to care for them elsewhere.

One elderly man and his family lived in the ruins of the house and was a descendent of the former chief.  Even though no one was able to maintain the house or contribute to its repairs and upkeep, the village had committed to keeping the house intact as a tribute to the chief.

Almost as a side note, our interpreter explained that the former chief had established the court system and jail in the nearby regional center of Nelarigu.

There were two chiefs in succession from the family but apparently a third generation was unable to assume the mantle.  Political dynasties, small and large, all end – some sooner, others later.

After the chief died, the family that included his 17 wives was unable to maintain cohesion or have the financial means to maintain the house so they scattered.

The judicial system that the chief established was his lasting legacy.  It represents a significant change in the tribal rule that still is prominent in the region.

Many of the things we work hard to maintain will not be sustained when we are gone.  What lasting legacy are you cultivating now?

In a culture where we are bombarded with promises, it is difficult to take promises and commitments seriously.   But, in business, in churches, and in civic organizations, that is exactly what we must do.

Forget about the promises others make.  Think about the promises we make and evaluate them seriously.  We must be careful that our promises to overextend our ability to delivery.

I’m not necessarily talking about big issue promises.  I’m thinking more about the smaller, seemingly more insignificant promises we make on a regular basis.  “I’ll meet you Tuesday morning at 7:30.”  “I’ll call you next week.”  “We’ll have that posted on our website this afternoon.”  “I’ll get that shipped out today.”

Every time we fail to make good on one of those small promises, our credibility is damaged.  Maybe it’s not a torpedo to the superstructure, but it is a chink in the armor.

As difficult as it may be, it is better in the long run to have never promised at all than to have promised and failed to deliver.  I promise.

I’m sitting with a couple of my buddies in a local breakfast spot this morning.  One of the guys found it only after I gave him the address to punch into his iPhone.

Last week, in my frustration trying to give him directions to a funeral home in a neighboring community, I insisted that he was directionally challenged.  I observed that he could only navigate with a visual screen in front of him.  In reality, he navigates better than most of us ever will.  He guides a huge green helicopter into who-knows-where by following what he sees on the visual screen in front of him.  He’s very good at what he does.

Part of the reason he is good at what he does is that he trusts his navigational devices.  He has been trained to rely on the equipment more than what he sees or thinks he sees around him.

We need to be better at that.  God has giving us navigational tools.  He’s given us his Word and his Spirit to guide us.  Too often, we want to follow our own instincts or rely on what we see around us.  Those usually lead us to bad choices.  Like my friend, we need to rely more on our navigational tools – even if it does cause people to say we are directionally challenged.

I’m trying to wrap my mind around this new concept and it’s a struggle for me.  The idea is that I am not God and I am not in control.  Perhaps you already knew that, but it’s a new concept for me.

Yeah, I’ve been tapped into the sovereignty of God thing for a good while.  And I’ve worked with that idea.  And, I’ve talked for a long time about not being in control but I’m trying to fathom new depths of that.

Not being in control means I’m not in charge.  But, it also means God didn’t appoint me playground monitor.  He didn’t give me a whistle to keep everybody else in line.  Dang, I sure thought he had.  Were did I get that whistle, then?

I said long ago that I had buried legalism.  If I’m not a legalist – a Pharisee, if you will – that means I don’t get to say who’s being naughty or nice. Because the problem is, we’ve all being naughty.  We’re all messed up.  I’ve always had the idea that some of us were more messed up than others.   That concept leads to pride and covering up.  That’s where we dress up and play church.

Maybe it’s time to stop playing church.  Maybe it’s time to look my brother in the eye. And, rather than say, “Dude, you’re messed up.  Let me show you how to deal with that,” the message needs to be, “I’m just as messed up as you are.  Let’s work on it together.”

So, I wonder how this is going to play out — brothers locking arms to help each other.  Man, this could be a whole new level of freedom.  I could be free to love.  I still have trouble with the idea of being free to dance.  After all, I’m still an east Tennessee white boy in my genes.

A few weeks ago, I talked about Clarksville’s willingness to volunteer citing a few examples of some volunteer projects going on in the area. We have now launched the Extreme Makeover project to take place in the Montgomery County area later this month. www.extrememakeover.com.

This is a great opportunity for many people to get involved and do a project that will be life-changing for one deserving family. But, others will be changed as well. Those who will be changed the most will be those who put the most into it.

Many people will show up as spectators. But, many will be involved in the 106-hour effort to build a house. Some of those will get publicity from it, but many will not. Many will be working in the middle of the night with few people watching. Some will do basic jobs as simple, but necessary, as bringing water to the workers.

This is a short-term effort to volunteer. It is interesting that many of the key people involved are not in their first rodeo. Most of the key leaders have been involved in other volunteer efforts. The builders have built Habitat houses and participated in Operation Serve among other things.

Extreme Makeover will come and go. One family will have a house that meets their needs. Lives will be changed. There will be many other opportunities to volunteer. There will be much more to do. What’s stopping you form getting involved?