It was clear from the very first day that I was let go from Messiah that this clearly directed from God… it was just up to several months of prayer understanding.  There were moments of frustration, anger, and desperation.  The time was spent in joy, the love of Christ and seeking after Him.  The time that was spent with my family is priceless, nothing can replace that time.

So what did the job search look like?  Well the first item was I was not out to look for a job but I was seeking out what my next career would be.  After applying with over 12corporations, grueling interviewins with 3 of them I accepted a position at The Dow Chemical Company as a UNIX Architect Specialist.  There is some amazing computing going on at Dow.  I am working with an amazing team; small, agile and highly empowered.

For the side venture that Erin and I are pursuing, well that is still in the works and more to come on that as far as location and time of opening.

Pastor Thomas I would like to share my thoughts on your post and journeys coffeehouse on main street.

When journeys coffeehouse was formed over three years ago inside the of the walls of Messiah it was known that is was only a place to grow and cultivate the idea of using a third place to help share the Gospel to the world. As much as one will try the fact is that journeys coffeehouse in it’s current location is stuck within the confines of a traditional church building. Folks who don’t yet know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior don’t want to walk into the walls of a traditional church, most churches buildings freak them out. As I recall from what I read, Jesus did not do the majority of His ministry and outreach in the temple but out where the people are. journeys coffeehouse goal is to create a ministry venue in which the gospel can be shared and lived out. journeys coffeehouse is not intending to be “a church” on main street but instead and more powerful to be “the Church” on main street. We can continue to build traditional church buildings and asking the world to come to Him, or we can take Him to the world.

I would rather pour my life into someone while sharing the gospel instead of polishing the pretty bricks on a traditional church building. Jesus did not come to the world to have us make members in church clubs but instead to have His creation cross from death to life through believing in Him.

Be Blessed,
Dan Lacher

Update to the post.  I do understand and believe in the local church so please don’t misunderstand that through my strong statements above.  What I do have a problem with are the traditional church settings are so inwardly focused that they are not evangelizing to the world and tightening in on the “club” mentality if even unconsciously.

The first time that I clearly recall hearing God, freaked me out. This to date is the only time that I believe I audibly heard Him. I was showering and praying about what the heck the day would bring when, as clear as can be, I heard a voice tell me that I was going to pray at the firehouse and over the fire fighters. I seriously looked around to see who was in the bathroom. I was a bit freaked at first, and spent most of the day then wrestling with God on if He really wanted me to do this. Really, I spent most of a day bantering back and forth over something so small. I finally said You got it, picked up the phone book, found the number for one of the stations in town and called. I headed over around dinner time and had a chance to sit around and find out a few of their stories. Before leaving I had took the opportunity to pray over the firehouse and the men that were their. It was humbling to hear the voice of God asking me to do something so simple yet so powerful.

Like I said above, that is to date the only time that I have heard the voice of God audibly speak to me. The other two encounters I am going to share came differently.

Messiah believed that we were being called, and still do believe, to take journeys out of our current building and to bring it to Main Street to create a coffeehouse ministry venue. Early in the process of imagining what this could be, I had been seriously praying over where God wanted us to place the coffeehouse. We had found a location right on Main Street in Midland and really felt like it was the place. Several of us had prayed over the location, but there were other offers starting to come in all at once on a building that had been sitting empty for over a year… So one night after a long day of working numbers for the new venue and endless hours working on other portions of the technology issues around Messiah, finally I made it home. Family time is always a wonderful thing to come home to after a long day, and as on every other normal night, Erin and I did the standard family routines and then Erin and I dropped into bed. I was exhausted off my feet… but I could not fall asleep. After tossing and turning, I found myself praying and asking what was on my heart that I had not confessed or didn’t understand. God and I had a great talk that night and then I drifted off to sleep. A few hours later, I had the most vivid dream I can recall having. As simple as the dream was, I clearly heard God tell me that the He was giving us the building and to not worry.

Okay, so first I tell you that I audibly hear the voice of God while I am showering and now I tell you that while I am sleeping one night He comes to me in a dream and tells me that He will give Messiah a building for launching a Main Street coffeehouse ministry venue… if you are still with me, that is right. It was an amazing and powerful dream that woke me up and I knew that it was truly God that had given me the dream and spoken to me.

Now to the present where I have been wrestling in pray for months with God over something and not knowing which way to go, what side is up or down, and really at a loss for the direction on how to proceed. While Erin and I were recently on a small vacation I had lots of time to do nothing. Nothing except spend some amazing time in prayer as I continued to wrestle with God over this. After several days of this and being deep in His Word, I was awoken by another amazing dream that laid out the answer. I know above I said the dream about the coffeehouse building was vivid, but this tops it. The details of this dream are captured and will be shared in time, but I am humbled to have been awoken by this dream and to know it was God clearly speaking to my heart on the matter. Simple and humble amazement washed over me for my Creator.

So there is it. I don’t know how or why God has chosen to speak to me in these ways but I am blessed to have listened and acted as He has called.

I leave this post with a word from our Lord.

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. Philippians 1:6

Be Blessed
dl

After that work was done someone got their hands on all of the footage from the two days and made an out takes video of the whole thing. I said that I would post it for all to see so here goes.

//

Be Blessed,
dl

I had the wonderful pleasure of joining with Third Place Consulting in helping to open up a cafe.  It was an amazing time of ministry, leadership and training.  As a side note… remember “ceramic works far better than paper when drinking coffee in the shower”.

From a local ministry perspective, this past Easter was the first since I have been full time at Messiah, that is a learning experience of really understanding what work / life balance is.  For those that have never been in employed full time ministry with at church, there as you would guess are two times that the work load goes up: Christmas and Easter.  This does not discount any and all of the other worship services that happen throughout the year, but those are two key opportunities to reach out and there is extra effort placed in those times.  If for some in America that are CEO Christitan (Christmas and Easter Only) than that is a key and curcial time to pour the love and salvation message into everyone that enters in either physically or virtually.

Virtually, what the heck do I mean by that?  One of the first items that we took on at Messiah was to launch a live streaming worship experience.  Messiah currently offers a live streaming worship service every Sunday at 9:30 eastern time.  We have blown the doors of the church and said that no matter where you are in the world, if you would like to worship with this faith family, then join us in worship online and give glory and honor to Jesus just like if you were sitting in the physical worship center.  Some time has passed now and we have most of the bgs worked out, a few more to go.  I am so honored to be a part of getting it off the ground and seeing it start to take a footing.  I was amazing the first time that we were able to witness someone through this streaming service give their life to Christ, that makes all the hours worth it.  All honor to Jesus for a transformed life and I am humbled to be a part in it.  If you would care to join it you can find it at Messiah On Demand.

journeys is still rockin’ away and I continue to see it as a valuable ministry tool to connect people, develop leaders and fund causes.  They just posted a brief on the latest cause the help to fund… nothing but life transformation and life saving.

Right now I am jacked to see spring is here and to enjoy being outside with my family.  Our oldest is starting soccer this year and she could not be happier.  Our youngest is still pushing in teeth, so that is a bit rough, but is all over the place and is bundle of joy and love.  My lovely wife is doing well, she is an amazing woman of God, awesome wife and unbelievable mother.  She is getting close to finishing up a large project at work and balances it all so well.  I can’t wait for the backpacking trips this season… I totally missed out last year with the bad knee.

God Bless,
dl

Anne Jackson brings this very issue to light in her book Mad Church Disease: Overcoming The Burnout Epidemic.  Instead of internalizing the fears, anger, sadness, and other emotions that can sometimes lead to and result in burnout, she encourages us as leaders to look to accountability people who can help us see the path that God has for us and stay closely on it.

Since I had allowed spending time with God to be replaced by spending time doing things for God, my spiritual tank had been sucked dry. When that happened, I began to lose perspective on almost every area of my life.  My defenses were down, and I allowed myself to start believing little lies the enemy would throw into my path.

Mad Church Disease is a well written path through the troubled road that one might walk in ministry.  Anne writes from the heart with very authentic and real life examples from her own walk as well as friends that have walked the road as well.  We applaud her courage for bringing the epidemic into the light and encouraging the rest of us to respond well to the challenges that ministry presents.

Thanks Anne for aiding in keeping us aware of staying fully grounded in God’s Word and time alone with our Savior.  Reading this has also helped us be aware others whom may be facing these challenges as they lead in their ministries.  It reinforces the need to surround ones self with authentic accountability and ensuring that one takes time away to relax and recharge.

We are recommending this book to our other ministry leaders that we serve along side.  It would be well for every ministry team to read and understand what could happen and guard against it.

God Bless,
Dan Lacher & Lauri Potter

At first I thought the solution to this would be to first go to Ustream, get logged in and then return to the live streaming page.  This did not yield any change in the results.  Futher searching through the help and forums from Ustream did not reveal anything further to the solution.  I was finally albe to connect with someone on the Ustream live help chat and obtain the solution.  So instead of keeping this nugget of knowledge to myself I am sharing it with you all.

There are one solution that will help with any guest as well as guest that are registered users on Ustream.

• For those guest that desire to change thier assigned name from “ustream-12345″ to soemthing more understandable they simply type in the chat box:
  /nick MyName
  This will change the “ustream-12345″ to “MyName-12345″
• For guest that desire to use their full Ustream username then the also have to supply their Ustream password:
  /nick UstreamUsername:UstreamPassword
  This will change their nick to their Ustream one for the chat.

Solution accomplished for those that are using a Ustream embedded chat outside of the original Ustream show page.

• Read from the Bible every day.  Unless I am unconscious there is no reason that I should not be able to attain this goal but yet it is a struggle for me at this point.  I will need prayerful support on this as well as all of the goals.  Here is the plan that I am following.
• Deepen my family and personal relationships.  In this overly connected, always on… world it is time to make relationships mean something again instead of surface level “connections”.
• Re-attain goal weight and maintain it.  Last year was such a great feeling to loose 30 lbs. and I have let a little of it come back on, so this year I desire to re-reach the goal weight and maintain it for the year.
• Get my self on the trail for at least two backpacking trips this season.  Last year I was off trail while I had the knee fixed up but I am back in the game this year.
• Finish up the basement project… come on man there is only some trim work left to do.
• Build up the technical and journeys servant teams @ Messiah.  The teams are running slim and I don’t desire to see them get burnt out, the Lord has a place for His people to serve.

There we have them, now to prayerfully work at attaining them.